If bestselling author and filmmaker Siba Shakib tried to go back to Iran today, she says she “would probably be put in prison right away.”
“People have written much less critical things and have gotten into much bigger problems than I have,” she explains.

Born and raised in Iran, Siba’s books and films explore gender roles and the history and culture in Iran, as well as in Afghanistan, where she spent time as a political advisor to NATO.
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Her books include Eskandar, a tale about a boy born at the beginning of the 20th century whose life mirrors Iran’s history during that century, and the PEN prize winner, Afghanistan, Where God Only Comes to Weep, a story about the plight of Afghan women under Taliban rule.

Recently, Siba opened up about her work and the current human rights situation in Iran.

TakePart: When did you first decide to speak out about human rights in Iran and incorporate the country’s history into your writing?

Siba: I went to a German school in Iran and always thought it was wrong that I was treated differently than my two brothers just because they are boys and I’m a girl. I thought somebody has to do something about this. I was very lucky to be born into a rich family, and I saw people who didn’t have enough to eat, who didn’t have nice clothes, who didn’t travel, who didn’t have a car, who lived in small houses. Again, I thought something is wrong here. When I started to study at university, I met a lot of politically active students, and it was no question for me whatsoever to become active myself. It was just a natural continuation. All of my work from the first day was about speaking up for the ones who have to encounter injustice.

TakePart: Do you think the human rights situation there is continually deteriorating?

Siba: You can really see from week to week that the human rights situation is getting worse. Not even now, but in the past eight to ten years. In my book [Eskandar], the struggle in Iran for parliament and constitution began just a bit more than a hundred years ago and since then, the human rights situation has become worse and worse and worse. Each decade you have more people losing their life and losing their freedom for human rights.

“It is not about an election anymore; it is about democracy, freedom, equal rights and human rights.”

TakePart: Where are you living currently and are many of your family members still in Iran?

Siba: I live in New York, Italy and Dubai. Part of my family is still there. My close family is out.

TakePart: What is life like for your family and friends who are still there?

Siba: It’s very hard for them. It is hard for everyone who is in Iran. I think nobody, even the ones who are in power, have an easy life right now because there is such a power struggle going on in Iran. The government within itself has so many conflicts.

TakePart: What can the international community do to get behind the Green Movement?

Siba: I don’t call it the Green Movement anymore. The green was just a symbol very much connected to the fraud of the election that went so tragically wrong. Now, two years later, the movement is so much more than ‘where is my vote.’ It is not about an election anymore; it is about democracy, freedom, equal rights and human rights.

To answer your original question, what can people outside Iran do? I think the most important thing is to protect your own democracies. That is important, because wherever democracy loses or lacks or is being attacked or diminished, it is bad for countries that don’t have democracy yet. To support the movement for democracy, and freedom in Iran directly, I think it’s best to observe and to spread the information and to connect as much as you can. Connect, connect, connect.
 
TakePart: In the past, you’ve spoken about how there is a lot of fear in Iran and how this is often difficult to overcome. Can you touch on this?

Siba: When you get in a very dangerous situation, the whole system—the brain, the heart, the feelings—everything seems to get an extra power infusion. If you give into your fear, it is clear you will lose and go under. Somehow, human beings are magic; we develop a certain strength when it gets really tough.

Imagine you’re in prison in Iran, as a woman or a man, a boy, a girl, doesn’t matter. They beat you, they torture you, they put you in darkness or in total light 24 hours a day, day after day. They rape you, not only with their own bodies—they rape you with sticks and batons. Normally, I would think that if a human being has to go through things like that for a week, two weeks, three weeks, they would die. How can they survive? But these people do survive.

They also break. Some of them break so badly they don’t get back on their feet if they survive. Human beings are in a very tragic way, very brutal. How can a human being be so cruel to do these things to another human being? How much do you have to shut down your own feelings and thoughts and intelligence to do something like that? And how strong do you have to be in order not to die the first time they do things like this to you?

TakePart: When you hear the term “freedom of expression,” what does that mean to you?

Siba: Oh my God, freedom of expression is such a big gift. Freedom of expression is being able to think, to feel and to speak without any limitation any other human being has put on you. There are still too many countries where it is not possible. Also, economical restrictions limit your freedom of speech. A person who’s hungry cannot have freedom of speech for as long as they are suffering from hunger. A person who does not have a safe health situation does not have freedom of speech. It’s a very vast right that in many very rich countries of the world even, it is limited and restricted by economical limitations.

Freedom of speech: when we say that, we think of countries like Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and even where we have democracy, we have to be very careful about the expressions that are connected with it. In European history and the history of the United States—your fathers, mothers, foremothers and forefathers—have fought to achieve what you have today, what we have today, and it’s something that has to be protected.

Source : http://www.takepart.com