Evin is waiting for Moein.
The route to Si-o-se-pol passes through Evin.
Evin is waiting for Moein. On Tuesday, January 9th, the news of Mehdi Yarrahi, a pop singer, being sentenced to two years in prison and 74 lashes was released. A day after, Iran’s Minister of Heritage and Tourism announced that the doors will be opened to Iranians, allowing millions to enter the country safely and comfortably.
On the same day, a reporter asked the Minister of Guidance, perhaps with a specific intent, about Nasrollah Moein, a renowned Iranian singer living abroad, and whether Moein could return to Iran and hold a concert. Mohammad Mehdi Esmaeili responded affirmatively and spoke in a manner that suggested Moein might be granted permission to work, stating that he would follow the legal process like other singers to obtain a permit.
It’s not clear how Moein’s name emerged among the singers abroad. Perhaps it’s because last week Mr. Moein reacted to the explosions in Kerman, posting a black image on his Instagram with the message ‘Kerman, condolences.’ In any case, it seems when talking about the legal process, that law has another side, as Mohsen Borhani, a lawyer and university professor, predicted based on legal articles that if the law is to be enforced, at least 28 years of imprisonment await Mr. Moein.
Mr. Esmaeili has spoken several times in the past two years about the possibility of artists returning. In March of last year, he told the Iran newspaper that all artists who have left, and even those who have sometimes taken a stance, can return. The embrace of the people and the system is open to those who want to serve the people, even if they have made mistakes in the past.
The recent video of the Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance’s statements, released through the Young Journalists Club affiliated with the political deputy of IRIB, has sparked widespread reactions on social media. Many users, referring to the government’s history of raising such issues on the eve of elections, called it a targeted or brave flexibility and wrote, ‘Don’t be surprised, anything is possible during elections.’ One user also wrote, ‘Hearing the Minister of Guidance’s words reminds me of my dad standing at the door with a belt saying, ‘Come in, I won’t do anything to you.’
Whenever there is talk of the return of Iranians residing abroad to Iran, the names of artists, writers, and prominent figures who have been driven out of Iran for years come up. Each year, news of the lonely deaths of prominent Iranians abroad is also published. For instance, in the first half of 2022, five distinguished Iranian writers and poets, including Reza Baraheni, Houshang Ebtehaj, and Abbas Maroufi, passed away far from their homeland.
Executive and judicial officials promise to open Iran’s borders to artists, even though in recent years, the name of Behrouz Vossoughi, a prominent pre-revolution Iranian cinema actor, has been brought up dozens of times for return. Many domestic artists have signed petitions for Mr. Vossoughi’s return, but on June 5th, 2018, Iran’s Attorney General accused Mr. Vossoughi in response to filmmakers’ requests, stating, ‘We are aware of the behind-the-scenes campaign artists have launched and Mr. Vossoughi’s current activities, whose corruption had become widespread.’
The story of longing and the desire to return to one’s homeland has been depicted in numerous films. The documentary ‘Another Greeting’ directed by Hossein Khandan was made about twenty-three years ago in 2000. ‘Another Greeting’ is a documentary about the meeting between Khosrow Shakibai, a prominent Iranian cinema actor (March 28, 1944 – July 19, 2008), and Behrouz Vossoughi.
Before meeting Behrouz Vossoughi, Khosrow Shakibai visited the residence of Sohrab Shahid Saless, a prominent and innovative Iranian cinema director, in Chicago and lamented that he wished Shahid Saless were alive to meet him, saying, ‘Dying in loneliness is very painful and unfair. If I ring Shahid Saless’s doorbell now, he will never open it. He was one of my life’s heroes, but like this time, I always arrived late. This time I was left with the regret of meeting Mr. Shahid Saless, who passed away in July 1998 in Chicago. The documentary ‘Another Greeting’ was broadcast outside Iran about a decade after its production, by which time Khosrow Shakibai had also passed away.
Alongside artists who longed to visit Iran, there were artists like Mohammad Khordadian, a dancer, and Habib Mohebian, a singer known as Habib, who traveled to Iran, and their cases became media stories. Mohammad Khordadian went to Iran in 2002 to visit his family and was arrested at Tehran airport while leaving, spending 21 days in solitary confinement in Evin prison. After leaving Iran, he never returned to his country.
The famous and beloved old pop singer Habib also went to Iran with the green light and promises of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s government. He faced problems with his artistic activities, was arrested, and was not allowed to work officially. The news of his sudden death in June 2016 was very shocking, and the media wrote, ‘The lonely man of the night has passed away.’ During this period, there was also talk of Moein’s trip to Iran, but according to Moein, such a trip did not materialize.
Additionally, on January 23, 2020, Iranian media reported that Amir Arzhang Kazemi, known artistically as Saman, who had been a singer in Los Angeles, was arrested while performing at a restaurant in northern Tehran. Apart from the stories of people like Habib Mohebian, which became media stories, the travels of famous and special individuals usually do not become media stories. As Mohammad Khordadian stated, security officials had asked him to keep his trip secret and away from the media’s eyes.
The story of artists returning to Iran from abroad is a double-edged sword, and whenever they are mentioned, the story of artists inside Iran is also raised. Artists who were deprived of artistic activities without any trial or acceptable legal reason. After the Islamic Revolution, artists were humiliated by being called musicians or actors of ‘Film Farsi.’ The film ‘Motreb’ directed by Mostafa Kiayee in December 2019 is an example of the many stories of artists who were forced to leave Iran for artistic activities or stayed in Iran and died longing to return to work.
Cinema actor Parviz Parastouei explained why he acted in the film ‘Motreb,’ saying, ‘I accepted this film because of Abbas Ghaderi, as I witnessed in the Judiciary building in the 1980s Mr. Ghaderi was whipped for singing, and I tried to stop it but couldn’t.’
Akbar Golpayegani, known as Golpa, a famous pre-revolution Iranian singer, was one of the most prominent music figures who couldn’t find work and passed away on November 4, 2023, leaving a great longing in the hearts of his fans. Alongside individuals like Golpa, singers like Fereydoun Foroughi and Farhad Mehrad, after years of isolation and loneliness, were very rarely allowed to perform, for example, on Kish Island. However, even this limited opportunity never arose for female singers, and individuals like Googoosh, after 21 years of restriction and hardship, were forced to leave their homeland.
Alongside male and female singers who weren’t allowed to work, a large number of cinema artists like Nasser Malek Motiee and Mohammad Ali Fardin, among the superstars of Iranian cinema, were not allowed to return to the cinema because the government saw them as symbols of pre-revolution cinema. Early in the revolution, their first cinematic activity with the film ‘The Damned’ directed by Iraj Ghaderi was removed from cinema screens and they were permanently sidelined. This trend extended to other artistic and cultural fields, and the government did not allow many scholars, writers, and artists to work, and they too faced the fate of cinema and music artists.
The Sazandegi newspaper, affiliated with the Construction Party, on Thursday, January 11, referred to the wave of emigration from Iran and dedicated its front page to the topic of Moein’s return to the country, asking why conservative governments are seeking Los Angeles singers while ignoring figures like Master Shajarian, Farhad, and Golpa.
Statements by government officials about the entry of Iranians residing abroad are not new. After the war ended, the first signs of a desire for Iranians to return to the country and, conversely, some Iranian officials’ interest in creating conditions for their return emerged. In 1990, when Sadegh Kharazi was Iran’s representative at the United Nations, he proposed a plan to attract Iranians abroad in Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani’s government, and the High Council of Iranians Abroad was established in the Foreign Ministry as a department in 1991. After several decades, this July 15, the government also announced it had submitted the bill to support Iranians abroad to the parliament.
Iranian Foreign Ministry officials say five million and one hundred thousand people abroad are in contact with the consulates of the Islamic Republic. Despite the media propaganda that government and judicial officials have launched this week about the return of Iranians abroad, many Iranians inside and outside still remember Ali Khamenei’s words on the 21st anniversary of Ruhollah Khomeini’s death on June 2, 2018, when he referred to the founder of the Islamic Republic’s will about the return of communists to Iran, saying, ‘You come inside the country and endure the punishment that the law and justice impose on you and be punished.’
That is, come and endure execution or imprisonment or other punishments to save yourself from divine torment and wrath. If you don’t have the courage for that, at least where you are, don’t be foot soldiers for the powerful and oppressors.
