Iran, activist Sadaf Baghbani: "We are a double target, of Israel's bombs and of the regime's repression"
For her, who paid dearly for her revolt and still has in her body the majority of the 147 lead pellets fired against her and her generation to repress the peaceful rebellion of “Woman, Life, Freedom” that broke out in September 2022 after the murder of Mahsa Jina Amini , the war of Israel and Trump’s America against the Islamic Republic of Iran seems “like a feud between families managed in a patriarchal way by old clan leaders in which the victims are the family members”. In short, a game between powers that have no interest in the fate of the Iranian people. This is the first thought that the activist and actress Sadaf Baghbani , thirty years old, who arrived in Italy in 2023 to heal the wounds of her body, expresses on the ongoing conflict. Her thoughts and range of emotions are many and contrasting.
"First of all I want to say that this war did not start today because I remember well when I was a child and at school they forced us to shout slogans 'death to America and death to Israel', without the regime creating shelters or places of protection for the civilian population in case of attacks", she tells VITA. " And then for us the war is twofold because together with the bombs there are the repressive actions by the regime that I fear, we all fear, will increase ". Sadaf confides in us that she feels guilty because at this moment she is abroad and protected "a strange condition for me who have always lived with the risk and fear of being attacked, arrested, killed" but she also expresses a deep bitterness as well as anguish for what could happen to the Iranian people, to her friends, to her family, to her two sisters.
"We, activists of "Donna, Vita, Libertà" faced the regime with bare hands, peacefully, but the international community did not intervene and we understood that without its support we would never have made it. And so the Islamic Republic took advantage of this to divide Iranian society. People, afflicted by daily difficulties, disheartened, did not have the courage to oppose or rediscover the courage that had pushed them to oppose. And by dividing us, the regime extinguished our thoughts, causing among other things a lot of depression". Sadaf Baghbani has told her story in the first person for months, often in tears, to express her pain on that day, in November 2022, when she found herself on the ground covered in blood and thought she was dead , to make people understand the ferocity of the Islamic Republic. Now, after the Israeli bombings and the attack that will be remembered as the 12-day war if the fragile ceasefire holds, she uses less emotional language. Who knows if the shock of seeing her city under attack led her to think beyond the poison of the lead pellets circulating in her body. Although she is also against Israel's war against Iran, she told us: "This is not our war but even if it is a paradox I thought that if I had been at home, I would have gone out into the streets to demonstrate against the regime and tried to persuade others to do the same but I am not in Iran and I cannot make an appeal or tell those under the bombs what to do".
One thing is certain and she tells us very clearly: " I don't dare to think what will happen next, when everything is over. The regime is already arresting and disappearing dissidents. And then? There could be a massacre and how will I continue to talk about the battle for democracy?", she asks herself with anguished anger. Sadaf Baghbani has told her story and that of her sisters in a theatrical performance inspired by her life, My Three Sisters and, despite the difficulties because the Islamic Republic blocked the connection to prevent information from leaking out (there have already been executions of dissidents accused of spying for Israel, ed.) she managed to talk to her sisters who are fine for now, she spoke to us a lot about the double war suffered by the Iranian people hit by both Israel and the regime. And the biggest paradox is that she can't say what is more terrifying, the war or the ceasefire. " I faced the regime bare-handed and paid a very high price but I know that the internal war will not end with the truce or peace, on the contrary it will be more ferocious. And in fact, as denounced by the Committee for the Liberation of Political Prisoners and Prisoners of Conscience in Iran or by the daughter of the dissident imprisoned in Evin, Reza Khandan, the prisoners risk disappearing or ending up in the black hole of the section managed by the Pasdaran and they have arrested another rapper, Khaleg, after the icon of the resistance, Toomaj Salehi. "I tremble at the thought of what the regime may do now," concludes Sadaf Baghbani, " for those who oppose it there can never be peace as long as the Islamic Republic exists ."
Vita.it
