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I’m sitting in a small apartment thousands of miles from Thran in a country I never imagined I would call home.

The sun is setting outside my window, painting the sky in shades of orange and pink.

And I’m about to tell you a story that still feels impossible even as I live it.

This is the story of how my own brother signed the papers that could have ended my life.

how I ended up in Iran’s most notorious prison facing execution for what I believed and how God reached down into the darkest place I’ve ever been and pulled me into the light.

But to understand that part, you need to understand where I came from.

You need to see the cage I lived in for 23 years.

The cage I didn’t even know was a cage until I found the key.

You need to understand what life was like before everything changed.

Before I knew there was another way to live.

>> Hello viewers from around the world.

Before Samira continues her story, we’d love to know where you are watching from and we would love to pray for you and your city.

Thank you and may God bless you as you listen to this powerful testimony.

I grew up in Thran in a family that took faith seriously.

Not casually, not nominally, but with the kind of devotion that shaped every hour of every day.

My father worked for the government, a respected position that required absolute loyalty to the Islamic Republic.

It was a job that came with status, but also with scrutiny.

Any hint of disloyalty, any suggestion that our family wasn’t properly devout could cost him everything.

So our home was run with precision, with religious observance that left no room for questioning or deviation.

My mother stayed home, managing our household with the kind of careful attention that comes from knowing you’re always being watched, always being evaluated.

She was the perfect Muslim wife and mother.

At least on the surface.

She knew exactly how to behave, how to speak, how to present our family to the world.

Every detail mattered.

The way she wore her hijab, the way she greeted neighbors, the way she managed our home.

Everything was calculated to show proper devotion, proper submission, proper faith.

Everything in our home revolved around religious duty.

Prayer times dictated our schedule.

Absolutely.

When the call to prayer sounded from the nearby mosque, everything stopped.

Whatever we were doing, whoever was visiting, whatever was happening, we stopped and we prayed.

The calls to prayer from the nearby mosque marked the rhythm of our days like a heartbeat.

We couldn’t escape.

a pulse that controlled our lives whether we felt it or not.

I had an older brother, Raza.

He was 8 years older than me, which meant he was practically an adult by the time I was old enough to really know him.

But when I was young, he was my hero in the way that older siblings often are to small children.

I remember how he would walk me to school when I was in first and second grade, holding my hand tight when we crossed busy streets.

I felt so safe with him, so protected.

He was tall and strong and confident, and I thought he could handle anything.

Once when I was maybe seven or eight, some older boys at school teased me about my teeth, which were a bit crooked.

Then children can be cruel about things like that.

And their mockery hurt more than I wanted to admit.

I came home crying, trying to hide my tears from my parents, but Reza saw.

He asked me what was wrong and I told him.

The next day, he came to my school and found those boys.

I didn’t see what happened, but those boys never bothered me again.

They wouldn’t even look at me after that.

Raza had protected me, had made the problem go away, had been my defender.

He taught me to ride a bicycle in the alley behind our building, running alongside me, his hand on the back of my seat, keeping me steady.

I remember his patience, how he never got frustrated when I fell, how he encouraged me to get back up and try again.

How he caught me when I started to tip over.

how he celebrated when I finally rode without his help.

In my child’s mind, he could do anything.

He could fix anything.

He was everything a big brother should be when Raza joined the besiege in his late teens.

Our father beamed with pride.

I can still see his face that day.

The way he stood straighter, the way he looked at Reza with such approval and satisfaction.

The bases are the volunteer militia, the morality enforcers, the eyes and ears of the Islamic Republic on every street corner.

They’re the ones who enforce hijab rules, who monitor behavior, who report deviations.

Joining them was seen as an honor, a sign of devotion, a commitment to protecting the Islamic Revolution.

It was prestigious in our community.

It meant Reza was serious about faith, serious about defending Islam, serious [snorts] about being the right kind of Iranian citizen.

My father would tell relatives about it with such pride in his voice.

My mother would mention it to neighbors, her head held high.

And I felt proud too in the way children feel proud of their older siblings before they understand what anything really means.

I didn’t know then what the besudge actually did, what kind of enforcement they carried out, what it meant to be the regime’s instrument of control.

Just knew everyone said it was good, so it must be good.

Raza wore his uniform with such conviction, such certainty.

He believed deeply in what he was doing.

This wasn’t just a job for him.

It was a calling, a mission, a fundamental part of his identity.

He was protecting Islam.

He was defending the revolution.

He was serving God.

At least that’s what he thought.

That’s what we all thought.

I was a good girl growing up.

I did everything right.

At least on the surface, I prayed five times a day, or at least I went through the motions.

I would kneel on my prayer mat, face toward Mecca, recite the words I had memorized since childhood.

My body knew the movements without thinking.

Bow, kneel, prostrate, recite over and over, five times every single day.

It became automatic, mechanical, something I could do while my mind wandered elsewhere.

I wore my hijab properly, always checking in mirrors and shop windows to make sure no strand of hair escaped.

That was so important, drilled into me from the time I was 9 years old.

Your hair is shameful.

Your hair will tempt men.

Your hair must be covered or you’re inviting sin.

I learned to pin the fabric carefully, to check constantly, to live in fear of the morality police who could stop you on the street if even a little hair showed.

I learned to make myself smaller, quieter, more covered, more invisible.

I memorized Quranic verses for school, reciting them perfectly when called upon.

I fasted during Ramadan even when it was difficult, even when the heat made me dizzy and sick.

I observed all the rules, followed all the restrictions, did everything that was expected of a good Muslim girl.

I never questioned, or at least I never questioned out loud.

Questioning was dangerous.

Questioning meant doubt, and doubt was sin.

I graduated from university with decent grades and got a position as a teaching assistant at a local school.

It was a respectable job for a young woman.

Not too ambitious, not too public, properly modest.

I taught young children their letters and numbers, helped them memorize their prayers, made sure they followed the rules.

I was becoming the kind of woman I was supposed to become.

quiet, obedient, properly religious, ready eventually to be a good wife and mother.

On paper, my life looked exactly as it should.

I had everything I was supposed to want.

A good family, a respectable position, a future that was mapped out clearly.

Marriage eventually, children, a life of devotion and service.

This was what success looked like for a woman in my world.

This was the goal.

This was the dream.

But there was something else.

Something I couldn’t name for the longest time.

It felt like drowning in air.

Like being hungry at a feast.

Like standing in a room full of people and being completely alone.

I had everything I was supposed to want.

Everything my society told me would make me complete.

But inside there was this vast emptiness that nothing could fill.

A void that all the prayers and rules and restrictions couldn’t touch.

The prayers felt hollow.

That was the truth.

I couldn’t admit to anyone, barely even to myself.

I would kneel on my prayer mat five times a day, pressing my forehead to the ground, reciting words I had memorized since childhood, and feel absolutely nothing.

It was like talking to an empty room, like shouting into a void, like performing a play where I knew all the lines, but none of it meant anything.

The words came out of my mouth automatically, but they didn’t connect to anything inside me.

They didn’t reach anywhere.

They just dissipated into silence.

Sometimes I would watch the other women at the mosque, their faces blank and distant during prayer.

And I wondered if they felt it too, this absence, this silence where connection should be.

Did they feel God when they prayed? Did they experience peace? Or were they all just going through the motions like me, pretending to feel things they didn’t feel, performing devotion they didn’t actually experience? I couldn’t ask.

You couldn’t ask questions like that.

Questions like that were dangerous.

They suggested doubt.

They suggested disloyalty.

They suggested you weren’t a good Muslim.

So I kept my questions to myself and kept praying and kept pretending and kept hoping that maybe eventually I would feel something, anything.

The connection that everyone said was supposed to be there.

I started noticing small things that disturbed me, things I had been trained not to notice.

The way morality police would harass women on the street for a loose hijab, screaming at them like they were criminals.

sometimes hitting them, dragging them away.

I had seen it hundreds of times, had walked past it without thinking because it was normal.

It was what happened.

It was how things were.

But something in me started resisting it.

Started feeling sick when I saw it.

started wondering why women’s bodies were treated as such dangerous things that every curve, every strand of hair, every hint of form had to be hidden and controlled and punished.

The way joy seemed like a crime.

That bothered me, too.

How any laughter that was too loud, any music that was too happy, any color that was too bright was suspicious.

How we were supposed to be serious and somber and restrained all the time.

How pleasure itself seemed sinful.

How enjoying life seemed to be betraying faith.

I watched people moving through Tyrron with their heads down, their faces carefully neutral, their voices carefully modulated.

And I wondered when we had all agreed to live like this, to make ourselves so small, to cut away so much of what it meant to be human.

I had a friend from university, Nazin, who loved poetry and art.

She was bright and creative, always sharing beautiful things.

She found, always talking about meaning and beauty and truth.

But during our last year of university, she started becoming more careful, more guarded.

She stopped sharing her thoughts as freely.

When we met for tea, she would glance around nervously before saying anything meaningful, checking to see who might overhehere, who might report, who might use her words against her.

I didn’t understand why at first.

I just thought she was becoming paranoid, seeing threats where there weren’t any.

But I see now that she was already changing.

Already finding something I hadn’t found yet.

Already learning that there were some truths you couldn’t speak freely.

Some discoveries you had to hide.

She was protecting herself because she had found something dangerous, something worth protecting, something I wouldn’t understand until later.

I was 23 years old, living in my parents’ home, teaching children at a local school, and every day felt the same.

Wake up before dawn for morning prayers.

Prayers.

Breakfast.

Getting ready.

Work.

Teaching children.

Maintaining proper behavior.

Home prayers.

Dinner with family.

Evening prayers.

Maybe some television if my father permitted it.

More prayers before bed.

Over and over and over.

The routine was suffocating.

But I didn’t know anything else.

This was life.

This was what God wanted, wasn’t it? The question kept coming back, wasn’t it? Was this really what God wanted? This emptiness dressed up as devotion.

This suffocation called faith.

This cage called righteousness.

But I pushed the questions down because I didn’t know what to do with them.

Where would they lead me? What answers could possibly exist that wouldn’t destroy everything I knew? Late at night, when everyone was asleep, I would sometimes turn on my phone and watch forbidden channels.

We had satellite TV hidden away in a closet, something technically illegal, but common enough that lots of families had them.

My father would have been furious if he’d known I was using it to watch Western channels, Christian channels, things that were supposed to corrupt us.

But I couldn’t help myself.

I was so desperate for something different, something that felt real, something that wasn’t the same empty rituals day after day.

I started seeing programs about Christians, which at first made me angry.

I had been taught that Christians were misguided people who had corrupted God’s true message.

That they worshiped three gods when there was only one, that they didn’t know any better, that they were lost, that they needed to be pied and corrected.

I had been taught that Jesus was just a prophet, important, but not divine, not God himself, certainly not someone worth dying for.

So when I first watch these Christian programs, I watch them with contempt.

Look at these foolish people.

I thought, look how they’ve been deceived.

Look how they worship a man instead of God.

I felt superior, educated, properly guided.

I knew the truth and they didn’t.

At least that’s what I told myself.

But something about them bothered me.

Not bothered in a bad way, but bothered like a question mark I couldn’t erase.

Bothered like a puzzle I couldn’t solve.

They seemed peaceful, not the forced surface level peace we showed in public.

The careful neutrality that was really fear dressed up as calm, but something deeper, something real, something that came from inside them rather than being performed for others.

They talked about God like he was close, like he listened, like he cared about individual human hearts, like he knew their names and their struggles and their fears and love them anyway.

They talked about relationship instead of just religion, about knowing God instead of just obeying rules about God, about being loved instead of just being judged.

I had never heard anyone talk about God that way.

In my world, God was distant, demanding, keeping score.

We obeyed out of fear and duty, not love.

We followed rules to avoid punishment, not to experience relationship.

We performed our devotion and hoped it was enough.

Always uncertain, always anxious that we hadn’t done enough, that we had made some mistake that would condemn us.

God was like a harsh teacher who noticed every error and showed no mercy, or like a distant king who couldn’t be approached, only feared from far away.

But these Christians talked about God differently.

They called him father.

Not in a formal way, but in an intimate way.

Like children who weren’t afraid of their father.

Like people who felt safe, who felt loved, who felt wanted.

They prayed with their eyes closed and tears running down their faces.

Not from fear, but from what looked like joy, like they were talking to someone who actually loved them.

I told myself I was watching to understand the enemy, to be better equipped to defend Islam if anyone ever challenged my faith, to know what arguments they made so I could counter them.

That’s what I told myself.

But really, I think even then I was searching.

I just didn’t know what for.

I was hungry, but I didn’t know what food I needed.

I was thirsty, but I didn’t know what would satisfy me.

I was lost, but I didn’t know which direction was home.

Then came a moment I’ll never forget.

A moment that still stands out in my memory so clearly I could be living it right now.

It was late evening and I was standing at my bedroom window watching the sun set over Thran.

The city stretched out before me in every direction.

Thousands of buildings, millions of people, all living under the same rules, believing the same things, following the same path.

The sky was beautiful, deep red and gold, the kind of sunset that should make you feel something profound, the kind that should make you feel connected to something bigger than yourself.

But I felt nothing.

just emptiness, just this vast aching absence where something should have been.

The beauty was right there in front of me, undeniable, and I was numb to it, dead inside, going through the motions of being alive, but not actually living.

I remember thinking, “Is this all there is? Is this all life will ever be?” The same prayers to a god who doesn’t hear me.

The same rules and restrictions that never produce the peace they promise.

The same emptiness.

No, no matter how much I try to fill it with obedience, I was surrounded by family, by community, by certainty.

And yet, I had never felt more alone in my entire life.

I didn’t know how to pray anymore.

Not the formal prayers I’d been taught.

Those felt completely useless, completely disconnected from what I actually needed.

But standing there at that window, something broke inside me.

Some wall I had been maintaining crumbled just a little.

And I whispered something from deep in my chest, from a place I didn’t even know existed.

I didn’t even know if anyone was listening.

I just said into the emptiness.

If there’s more than this, if there’s something real, if there’s a God who actually hears and cares, please show me.

I can’t keep living like this.

I’m drowning.

I’m dying inside.

Please, if there’s anything real, show me.

Nothing dramatic happened that night.

The sky didn’t open.

No voice spoke from heaven.

No angel appeared.

The sun set and darkness came.

And I went to bed.

and life continued exactly as before.

But looking back now, I believe that was the moment everything started to change.

That was the moment I admitted I was lost and asked to be found.

That was the moment I stopped pretending I was fine and acknowledged the desperate hunger inside me.

That was the moment God heard a cry I barely knew I was making.

A few weeks later, I was at work having tea with Mariam during our break.

Mariam was a colleague who taught in the classroom next to mine.

We had worked together for about a year, but we weren’t particularly close.

She was quiet, kind, always professional, never caused any problems.

But there was something different about her, too, something I couldn’t quite identify.

She never seemed afraid the way the rest of us were.

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