2023-08-01 13:52:12
A Danish travel blogger was one of four Europeans freed by Iran last month in a prisoner swap.
In an exclusive interview with the BBC, Thomas Kjems recounted what he experienced during his detention and admitted feeling guilty for having been exchanged for an Iranian diplomat imprisoned in Belgium, for allegedly planning an attack.
It seemed that wherever Kjems traveled last year he was soon plunged into conflict or crisis.
The 28-year-old embarked on a hitchhiking adventure from Denmark to Ukraine in January 2022. But shortly after arriving in Ukraine the russian invasion began.
He then decided to go to Armenia, where neighboring Iran aroused his interest. In September, the Iranian embassy in Yerevan granted him a tourist visa.
But his arrival in the Persian country coincided with the death in custody of Mahsa “Zhina” Aminia 22-year-old Kurdish woman detained by the Morality Police for allegedly violating the Islamic Republic’s strict dress code.
His death sparked nationwide protests, which Kjems found in almost every city he visited.
Getty Images The death of Masha Amini, at the hands of the Morale Police, sparked an unprecedented wave of protests in Iran.
All precautions were insufficient
“I had rules to avoid any conflict and anything political in Iran. I told myself: don’t go near military sites or government buildings, don’t take photos or videos of them. And then I added that I shouldn’t go near any demonstrations,” he said. he told the BBC.
But did not evade the gaze of the Iranian security forces. In early October, intelligence agents detained Kjems at his Tehran hostel.
They took him to the notorious Evin Prison, known for housing many protesters and political prisoners.
“They did not tell me why they had stopped me. They asked me: ‘Why are we taking you (to prison)?’ I was confused and said: ‘I made some videos, I don’t know why,'” he narrated.
A prosecutor then forced him to sign two papers written in Persian.
“I didn’t know what I was signing. (But) I was basically accepting that the allegations (against me) were true.“, he commented.
Kjems was accused of participating in the protests and filming them, which was considered an act against Iran’s national security.
BBC Kjems told the BBC that he avoided interfering in the protests, but that did not stop the Persian authorities from detaining him.
an unexpected surprise
Inside Evin, he shared a cell with several Iranians also detained during the riots. She prepared herself for an ordeal, but she experienced an unexpected kindness.
One of his cellmates was Ayatollah Abdolhamid Masoumi-Tehrani, a cleric critical of Iran’s supreme leader who was detained in Tehran in October.
“We hope that Thomas does not judge Iran based on the actions of those who kept him in prison”he told the BBC in a video call.
Kjems said that the ayatollah gave him a portion of his own food every day. “It was a small gesture, but in prison it is a very big gesture,” he added.
Another of his cellmates was Mohammad Boroughani, a 20-year-old protester who in November was found guilty by a Tehran revolutionary court of “enmity towards God” and sentenced to death.
Boroughani was charged with assaulting a security guard and setting fire to a government building. Amnesty International claimed that his trial was a “sham”.
Kjems said he was in the cell the day Boroughani was informed of his death sentence.
“When I asked him why he was angry, his cellmates told me that his detention was extended for another month. I tried to cheer him up“, he narrated.
A few days later, he found out the truth.
“I stayed like a stone”, he said, while assuring: “I remember that he told me that he had tried to hit one of those riot policemen, but he did not succeed. There were other people in prison on death row for posting a story on Instagram.”
Kjems said the intelligence agents did not physically harm him, but he heard harrowing accounts of prosecutors subjecting other inmates to brutal torture.
Getty Images The protests last year were a great challenge for the regime of the ayatollahs that has ruled Iran since 1979.
The swap
In June, after seven months in detention, prison officials told him to pack up and leave his cell.
He was taken to the Mehrabad airport in Tehran and boarded a private plane bound for Oman.
He had been released by Iran after mediation by the Omani government.
Two Iranian-Austrian citizens, Massud Mossaheb and Kamran Ghaderi, and Belgian aid worker Olivier Vandecasteele were also released as part of the prisoner swap. The three men were serving prison terms after being convicted of espionage, charges they denied.
At the same time, Iranian diplomat Asadollah Assadi was released by Belgium, where he had been serving a 20-year prison sentence for planning to bomb a rally of an exiled Iranian opposition group in France in 2018.
BBC Kjems shared a cell with Mohammad Boroughani, a 20-year-old boy who was executed for participating in the demonstrations.
Kjems said he felt “a lot of guilt” after learning that Assadi had been released, adding: “This whole exchange is an ethical dilemma.”.
His lawyer, Sam Jalaei from Denmark, said he was innocent, but these cases could not be resolved through the legal process in Iran alone.
“From the beginning we knew that it was a political issue. That is why we were in permanent contact with the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and intelligence service,” he explained.
Kjems said that after seven months in jail he just wanted to go home and try his mother’s coffee.
“Now that I know how the system works in Iran, how they use foreigners as currency or as money, I will never go back,” he said while having an espresso in a cafeteria in Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark.
BBC
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