“Please don’t forget me.” This is the desperate plea of Iranian photojournalist Yalda Moairy. He has spent more than 20 years documenting life under the Iranian regime. These include, most recently, a bloody crackdown on protests in January, a war with the United States, and a new campaign of repression currently underway.
Moairy’s story and photos have been published around the world, but he is now a target himself, sentenced earlier this month by an Iranian court to 15 years in prison for “activities promoting the Zionist regime’s interests in national security.” She hopes to appeal the decision.
Moairy told me that he plans to continue testifying as long as he can, even as he prepares for the alarming prospect of serving years behind bars in Iran’s notorious prisons. “I have no desire to work as a person within a propaganda framework,” she said. “This is the biggest thing, all my interviews, all my photos… everything, everything I did as a photojournalist… is like a crime to them, including my conversations with you. All of these are my crimes.”
I first interviewed Moely for CNN in February, in the wake of anti-government protests that spread to more than 100 cities amid anger over Iran’s economic turmoil and government repression.
She provided rare witness testimony from inside Iran, even as the regime sought to cut off communication with the outside world. Over a patchy internet connection, she told me that the scale of the protests was unlike anything she had ever seen before.
“In the 25 years I’ve been working as a photojournalist, I’ve never seen crowds like this,” she said at the time. “It was unbelievable. Huge numbers of people, hundreds of thousands of people, gathered in the streets, groups of people who looked like families, children, babies, even the elderly, whole families were there.”
But as the government cracked down on the demonstrations, which human rights groups estimate left thousands dead, Moeri said the people’s hopes had vanished.
“It’s terrible, it’s the saddest time in our history,” she said at the time. “I’m 44 years old. I’ve never experienced such emotions in my life. I’ve never been so desperate in my life. And all the people I talk to, the people in the city… all my friends. People are so desperate, so sad. And this is the main question they’re asking each other… What can we do?”
I spoke with Moairy again after the United States and Israel launched a war against Iran in February. Although the government continued to block access to the internet, she managed to convey that many Iranians she spoke to wanted the conflict to bring down the regime.
“People support the war,” she said. “I have to be honest…people want the war to continue because they have tried many peaceful ways to change this system.”
But six months later, as the war drags on with no end in sight and economic and political pressures intensify, I ask Moery if he still has any hope for change. “No, not at all,” she said this week. “During the war…we knew that many people wanted this war to continue, but these days things have changed a lot and people don’t think that way.”
“Most of them are thinking about their financial situation,” she continued. “People can’t afford very basic needs…The real war is here. The real war is the economy right now.”
More broadly, she and many of the people she interviewed said they believed the war had strengthened the regime. “Unfortunately, it’s stronger,” she said. “We are facing…the worst Islamic Republic I have ever seen…I am a child of the Islamic Republic. I was born a few years after the regime came to power and I have never seen anything like it in my life.”
“The very new version of the Islamic Republic is much angrier and much more robust,” she said.
Moairi was going through that rigor as we spoke. Hours before our latest interview, she said Iranian authorities threatened to raid her home if she spoke to international media again.
“They (threatened) me a few hours earlier that if you spoke to anyone again – of course they didn’t give your name – if you told anyone about this incident, we would come to your house again and they would search your house again and we would take your cell phone,” she told me.
Yet, displaying once again her now familiar courage and determination, she insisted, “I don’t care. Of course I’m scared of what’s going to happen. Fifteen years is a lifetime. But…this is a risk I’ve accepted all my life to tell the truth, to show the truth, to be an independent journalist and a photojournalist.”
“I haven’t given up. I have no regrets,” she added.
We at CNN took the allegations against Moairy very seriously. Before our latest interview, I asked her if she was worried that talking to me would make things worse. On the contrary, she said she believed “it will definitely help,” adding: “This interview has to happen.”
Moairy’s views are not unusual. Those imprisoned by the Iranian regime, including journalists Jason Rezaian and Roksana Saberi and businessman Siamak Namazi, said public attention to their cases, including reports and interviews in international media, helped build pressure to ultimately win their release.
That remains her hope even as she faces the terrifying prospect of long-term imprisonment.
“As journalists, as independent journalists, we don’t carry any weapons,” she told me. “All we have is the media and the truth. This is what I always try to protect and when I inform people about what is happening in my country, about me and my case.”
“This will also be helpful to other journalists around the world living under authoritarian regimes,” she continued. “I think this is like a global solution for all of us, and of course it will help.”
Then she added the powerful words, “Don’t forget me,” and I responded, “We will never forget you.”
