“I returned home from work and the agents from the Intelligence Ministry knocked on the door”

Mahsa Amrabadi was arrested for writing critical reports about the Iranian government. And she carried on writing.

Iran is ranked 176 out of 180 countries on the World Press Freedom Index, making it one of the most dangerous countries for journalists. Mahsa, who has been a journalist for over 15 years, has fought to have a voice in a place where voices are silenced. Despite the consequences, she has kept writing, and she is not planning on stopping. Sitting in her room far from home, she drives me through her past, telling a story where resilience is seen in her eyes and impregnated in all her words.

“I remember people lining up early in the morning to buy newspapers, and it was incredible,” Mahsa explains. She was born in 1984 in Teheran, Iran, and lived her teenage years when Muhammad Khatami, a reformist leader, governed the country. Khatami’s ruling from 1997 to 2005 is known as a “press spring”, in which debates, people’s demands and critical news stories had a place in the media. “I saw how young passionate journalists could hold government high-ranking officials accountable.” Realising the impact and responsibility that newspapers inspired young Mahsa, who decided to study journalism at university.

Iran’s political structure, however, leaves no room for press freedom. The theocratic republic, established in 1979 after the Islamic Revolution, has a complex power structure that combines democratic elements —a parliament, a president, and an Assembly of Experts— and Islamic institutions, like the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which ensure that the Islamic Law —the Shariah— is applied.

However, despite elections being held to elect the parliament, the president, and the Assembly of Experts, the ultimate power resides in the unelected Supreme Leader. This figure has ideological and political control over the country and dominates the whole power structure and institutions: the Supreme Leader can veto and dismiss from office any key political figures. Both conservative and reformist presidents have ruled the country in the last years. However, despite small policy shifts, the absolute dominance of the Supreme Leader has made the overall landscape remain uniform, with limited place for freedom of expression.

After graduating from university, Mahsa worked for several reputable domestic news agencies and newspapers as a reporter, specialising in politics and diplomacy. Her job, however, was challenging from the beginning: “Journalism in Iran is a job that comes with numerous dangers, low income, and daily challenges. You have to love your career. You have to believe in your career,” explains Mahsa.

In Iran, journalism is an unstable, fast-changing job since censorship leads to newspapers being banned regularly. Mahsa had to change jobs every few months, moving between several newspapers and news agencies. Despite the difficulties, she produced remarkable, highly influential work. In one of her reports, she wrote about corruption in the Labour Ministry, which caused the minister's impeachment.

When I ask Mahsa about censorship, she can not pinpoint the first time she encountered it. “I guess it becomes an integral part of your life”, she says. From the first moment she went to school and listened to teachers, her brain unconsciously learned that she could not criticise the Supreme Leader or the government in public. “I believe that in every country’s media system, there are red lines influenced by political policies, which are highly marked in Iran,” points out Mahsa. As a journalist, she developed an instinct for identifying these red lines even when these were not explicitly stated. With experience, journalists use self-censorship to navigate the profession safely and avoid crossing them. However, they keep facing arbitrary arrests and unfair trials, followed by imprisonment, harassment, and in some extreme cases, execution.

“Domestic media has lost much of its functionality,” explains Mahsa. Iranians are aware of the censorship that domestic newspapers suffer, making them rely on international media outlets and social media to get their news. Some journalists chose to leave the profession and pursue other careers, and others have joined other Persian-language media outlets abroad.

In 2009, Iran faced a disputed, controversial presidential election. Conservative Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, ruling since 2005, was disputing the presidency with Hossein Mousavi, a reformist candidate. At that time, Mahsa was working as a political reporter in the reformist newspaper Etemad-e Melli. Before the election, she had published critical reports about possible corruption in Ahmadinejad’s government. “We firmly believed that Ahmanidejad was not the right choice for Iran, and we worked tirelessly to inform the public about his record.” In a press conference, she asked the president questions regarding corruption. “This likely drew attention from the authorities,” she points out.

“My life changed on election night,” explains Mahsa. On June 14, 2009, when she returned home after covering election night, agents from the Intelligence Ministry rang the door and entered her house. After searching her home and finding evidence that she worked with Etemad-e Melli, she got arrested and was taken to Evin prison in Teheran. She spent two weeks confined in a solitary cell and being interrogated: “It’s very challenging. You are always thinking, what should I tell them?”. Mahsa’s mind was consumed by an internal debate, constantly questioning which answers should she give to the interrogators.

“You are going to be executed,” said one of the interrogators to Mahsa. She could not believe what she was hearing. Despite not believing him at the beginning, he showed her a page of Etemad-e Melli. “I saw that every high-profile person linked to reformist political parties was arrested.” Seeing this massive repression made her believe the interrogator. “He was right. He was going to execute me,” she thought.

Officially, Mahsa was charged with “insulting the President of Iran” and “propaganda activities against the state.” After two weeks in solitary, she was transferred to a cell with three other women. After spending two and a half months there, she was released on bail.

“This was a defining moment for me and my career,” she explains. Mahsa suffered, in her own skin, the consequences of having a voice in a place where these are shut down. However, she did not cease fighting for what she believed in. Reformist newspapers, including Etemad-e Melli, were banned by the government after the 2009 elections and following protests, so there were no platforms on which she could write. That did not stop Mahsa: She kept working with international media outlets and domestic newspapers anonymously, writing statements on behalf of imprisoned journalists and reporting on what the country was facing.

“I was in my car when the Islamic Revolutionary Guard arrested me for the second time,” Mahsa explains. It was March 2011, and she was taken to Evin Prison. She was sentenced to two years in prison and charged with “propaganda activities against the state through interviews and news reports.” This experience, however, was completely different from the first one. After remaining in confinement in a solitary cell for one month, she was transferred to the General Ward.

“I found myself surrounded by other journalists, activists, elites, and people from different religions,” she explains. Despite the place and the circumstances not being ideal, Mahsa tried hard to make the most out of it. She was not allowed to receive and do phone calls, and could only have a family visit once a week. However, she and her cellmates supported eachother through everything and found ways to keep their spirits up. “We cried together, we laughed together…,” she says. “We even made alcohol together!” With a smile on her face looking back at that memory, she explains how using berries, they made their own wine. “In prison, I ended up finding my best friends.”

“You can cry one day, two days, one week… But after that, you can’t keep crying”. Mahsa used her two years in prison to learn, read, and exercise. She read history, philosophy and sociology books and novels. “I began to learn Spanish and German,” she explains. “Hola! Como estás? Me llamo Mahsa,” says, trying to remember how to introduce herself in Spanish. Time in prison also allowed her to grow a lot personally: “I learned how to be patient and how to talk to people with other thoughts”.

The chase did not end when Mahsa was released from prison in 2013. After working for some months for Shargh newspaper, the Intelligence Service met Shargh’s owner and threatened him. “If Mahsa works here, we will ban your newspaper”. She had to leave her job and started working at Etemad, another reformist publication. However, the same thing happened several times, so Mahsa decided to stop writing about politics and shift to agriculture journalism. Despite the change, the same challenge arose: “I was writing about soil, water, food security, and again, it happened,” she explains. “I was so upset, I was so angry”.

Mahsa had to stop doing the job she loved, that she studied and had fought for. All of this frustration led to mental health struggles, and she was diagnosed with depression. Realising that journalism was not an option anymore, she studied French and got into book publishing working as a translator.

Although over 10 years have passed since her release and she could now return to the press, the worsening censorship in Iran means she would struggle to publish freely. However, this hasn’t deterred her dreams: she aims to become an international war journalist.

“I told myself, I’m not that old, it’s never late”. She is currently 40 years old and pursuing a Master’s Degree at Oxford Brookes University to make that dream come true. She aims to work with international news outlets to show the world the reality of what is happening in the Middle East. “I want to shed light on many aspects of war, like the impacts of war on women and children,” she says.

When I ask Mahsa to give a piece of advice to her younger self when was starting a career in journalism, she stops and thinks. Her voice is firm when she says “I would tell myself, ‘You can do it. You will get released from Iran, you will get released from those strict rules, you will have a great job, and make an impact through it.’”