Committee to Protect Journalists

After journalist Maryam (Asal) Abasian escaped Iran for Turkey last year, she posted a photo of her cropped hair, freshly dyed green, on Instagram for her 30th birthday. “New year, New decade, New life…” she wrote as the caption.

As a queer journalist, Abasian’s sexual and professional identity had long put her at risk in Iran, where she worked for multiple publications including Shargh Daily, daily newspaper Donya-e-Eqtesad, and Chelcheragh magazine.

Last fall, Iran’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC),  repeatedly summoned her for questioning over her reporting on the new presidential administration for the reformist Shargh Daily. She said that her interrogators often brought up her sexual orientation, calling her “unworthy.” (Sexual minorities face legal persecution in Iran.)

Abasian decided “emigration was the only way to protect myself” and so she fled the country in October 2021, leaving a letter for her parents telling them she believed they would see each other again.

In a rare phone interview–few Iranian exiled journalists are willing to go on the record for fear of retaliation–Abasian spoke with CPJ about her treatment by Iranian authorities and her future in journalism in exile. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

CPJ emailed the office of Iran’s mission to the United Nations for comment but did not receive a reply.

How did your harassment at the hands of the IRGC begin?

I was taken for an interrogation for the first time in September 2020. At the beginning their main issue was my activities and posts on my Twitter and Instagram accounts. Especially my posts about political prisoner Navid Afkari [an Iranian wrestler executed in September 2020 for allegedly murdering a security agent; human rights groups said he confessed under torture]. But in my opinion those posts of mine were in line with my rights as both a citizen and a journalist. After that, I received scary and threatening phone calls from different unknown numbers. 

After the presidential election in June 2021, the IRGC security agents again took me to a new undisclosed location near Evin prison, where I endured hours of shameless verbal harassment particularly focused on my sexual orientation. They were trying to prove that because of who I am I’m unworthy, corrupt, with no identity and unqualified to work as a journalist.

They told me that they are aware of my queer identity and my activities as a queer feminist and that they would block me from working as a journalist. The amount of threats, insults, and the vocabulary they used against me was so harsh that practically I wasn’t able to continue working anymore. There was no official or judicial order to my boss or the editor in chief to fire me, but I was quite certain that if I continued my journalism they would either imprison me or seriously hurt me. 

What ultimately pushed you to flee Iran?

The deep and tense feeling of insecurity was the main reason to leave Iran. If I stayed and they finally sentenced me, first I wouldn’t be able to afford the bail. Second, I didn’t want to endanger my family and loved ones because of who I was and what I did. The most important reason to leave was that the security agents wanted to force me to cooperate with them and I never could imagine myself in such a situation.

Right now, I’m displaced but I’m not forced to cooperate with the Islamic Republic’s suppression system. Obviously, I will face professional uncertainty and insecurity but it is important that I will, at some point, be able to write for free media without censorship >>> Continue