Takepart:

For centuries, the winter solstice has been celebrated in Iran as a holiday called Shab-e Yalda. Families snuggle into homes, gathering to say goodbye to the warmer seasons, and welcoming the winter by staying up late to read ancient Persian poetry and eating pomegranates, dried fruits, and nuts.

Ali and Mariam were apart from their families that night five years ago. Ali had picked Mariam up from work and driven her to Park-e Shahr for a date. The green plaza, in front of the Tehran municipal building, was quiet, a perfect place for young lovers. The couple walked along a dirt path through tall, centuries-old evergreen trees, and around the park's small lake, where tourists rent pedal boats.

Mariam’s parents thought she was with one of her girlfriends that night. If her religiously conservative father ever found out that she was alone with a man, he would have taken away her cell phone, forbade contact between them, and monitored her every move. Conservative men and women don’t so much as shake hands with strangers of the opposite sex in Iran, where mosques, classrooms, and trains are generally segregated according to gender. The couple had never even held hands, because Mariam’s family had taught her that as an unmarried woman it would be sacrilegious to touch a man outside her family. So she and Ali kept close, but not too close...

Go to link