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- Story Listed as: True Life For Adults
- Theme: Survival / Success
- Subject: Politics / Power / Abuse of Power
- Published: 11/04/2023
Not Broken
Born 1961, F, from Manchester, United Kingdom.jpeg)
Marjan was arrested along with a group of men and women in a party in Tehran. According to Sharia law, any relationship outside marriage between men and women is forbidden. One of the neighbors who was religious reported hearing music and a large group of youth gathering, which was more than enough for the Moral Security Police of Iran to raid there.
As a result, despite nothing indecent or even out of ordinary had happened in that party, they were all arrested. Men and women were separated, and forced into vans, where they were piled up almost on top of each other, in a suffocating manner.
They were taken to a police station. There, they took women to the basement. None of the detainees was allowed to call her family or lawyer, and their cell phones were forcefully taken. Most of them were in their mid-20s, and a few were younger, as young as 15. Marjan was 24 years old herself. Their families had no idea what had happened or where they were.
At the detention center basement, some policewomen organized them in a line, and told them they should get fully naked and come in front of a camera to picture them in that state. The girls protested and asked why they should do such a thing, and the policewomen replied it was to ensure they can’t sue those who detained them at the party for using force and damaging them, and also to ensure they don’t have anything hidden under their clothes.
Some of the girls, specially those who were younger and emotionally vulnerable, started begging and crying. The policewomen insulted and humiliated them, in order to break their spirits. They said things like “You were comfortable enough to get naked in front of men, so how can you be ashamed to do it in front of us?!”. Of course, the girls were all dressed and acting decently at the party. None of them had done something like that, and the policewomen definitely knew that.
Marjan was the last person in the line. She saw how the innocent young girls were crying and begging, and how those rapists in uniforms were taking advantage of their vulnerability to break their spirits. Seeing her friends in that state was more painful for Marjan than what awaited her afterwards.
She knew how stupid the excuses of policewomen who wanted them to do such an indecent thing were. They were worried a bruise on a girl’s body may be used to sue some policemen?! And they were going to forcefully take naked pictures of all the girls for that reason?! They were afraid someone might have hidden a cellphone or a camera under her clothes?! Why would someone want to do that? To call her family and inform them of what had happened of course. But that was their right! They should have been allowed to do that from the start!
None of the mentioned reasons seemed right. She could only think of one reason that made sense: This was a way to scare and humiliate the girls, to break their spirits and make them feel ashamed and humiliated for the rest of their lives.
Realizing that, Marjan made a decision. “Enough of this!” she shouted, as she started walking forward from back of the line with an angry face. The policewomen thought she was going to attack them, and went back a few steps, while the girls who were crying and begging at the beginning of the line watched in surprise.
When she passed all the girls, some of the policewomen raised their batons, thinking she was going to get into a fight with them. But when she got to the front, to everyone’s surprise, she began undressing without showing any sign of hesitation or shame.
She took off every piece of clothing she had on her, and threw them in the faces of the policewomen who were watching in disbelief. She stood straight in front of the camera completely naked, with an angry and determined face, and shouted “What are you waiting for?! Go ahead! Take as many pictures as you want!”
One of the policewomen managed to come out of shock after a few seconds, and went behind the camera, while she was shaking, and unlike Marjan, fear was clear on her face. She barely managed to push the camera’s button to take a picture.
After that, Marjan turned towards the girls and said: “Why do you think they want to take naked pictures of us? Surely you are not so naïve to believe their stupid reasons! So why? That’s obvious! To make us feel ashamed and humiliated. They can’t do that, unless we let them to. But don’t let them! Take off your clothes; not because they ordered us to do so, or we are afraid of them. Let’s bare our butts together in their faces to demonstrate that we don’t respect them, and don’t even bother to cover anything in front of them! And let them keep the pictures to remind themselves of this fact every day for the rest of their lives!”
The girls’ spirits rouse immediately. Those who were crying and begging stopped to do so.
One of the policewomen tried to take control of the situation. “Shut up! Get dressed and go back.” She ordered.
“No! I’m not getting dressed. I’m staying buck naked until every last person has done it. Do you really think I didn’t mean what I said? You deserve my naked bottom! Nothing more!” Marjan replied with anger.
A few girls began clapping and whistling for Marjan from the back, and soon, more joined them, until the whole group was cheering for her.
That made the policewomen angry. They began insulting and threatening her, calling her a dirty girl.
Another girl came forward immediately, saying “Dirty? What she did is dirty, but whose fault is that? You are the ones who are asking us to treat you like dirty perverts, otherwise you wouldn’t have asked us to bare our butts in front of you! So, why are you angry? We are going to do what you wanted!”, and began undressing like Marjan.
The girls clapped and whistled for her too, as she undressed like Marjan, and went in front of the camera naked, laughing and showing two “V” shapes with her hands.
The policewomen desperately tried to make the girls feel ashamed and humiliated with their dirty words, as the other girls followed the example set by those two, and went in front of the camera like them. But it was to no avail. The taboo had been broken, and the tide had turned. Now it was them who were feeling dirty and belittled, and no one was taking their authority seriously.
All the girls were set free hours later that day. The police asked them to sign a letter of commitment, promising that they will not participate in such parties in the future, but the girls who were now in high spirits refused together, and said their crime has to be proven before they sign anything. Despite that, since their families had learned where they were without any help from the police, and had gathered outside, forming a large angry crowd which threatened to start a riot, the police gave up and set them all free.
The girls decided not to tell their families about the naked pictures at the time, fearing that they may get even more angry and attack the police station, which would have resulted in bloodshed.
Later, Marjan and her friends learned that the men who were arrested with them had not seen such an abuse. They were merely kept in detention for a few hours and were set free almost at the same time. That showed the purpose of the attempted sexual humiliation was exactly what Marjan had described. They wanted to make women feel dirty and scared, and since sexual abuse is some kind of taboo in countries like Iran, and sometimes the victims are blamed instead of the offenders, that must have seemed like a good way to break their pride and personality to the oppressors.
Years later, after learning that such a sexual abuse is still being committed, and some activists and well-known Iranian women shared their own experiences, Marjan decided to publicize the story.
Her purpose was not only to expose the ruling regime and its hypocrisy, which arrests women if their hair is out and then forces them to strip naked in detention, but also helping the victims overcome the bad mood, and nullifying the attempts for breaking prisoners’ spirits with such dirty methods.
Marjan wrote that she is not ashamed because of the picture, and if she manages to get her hands on it, she would publish it herself in order to demonstrate what has happened and is still happening to Iranian women in detention and prisons.
The girls were not broken that day. Instead they broke the basis of dictatorship, which is keeping people afraid and submissive.
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