May 10, 2024
Atena Daemi is one of many Iranian women who have fought for rights denied by the Islamic Republic and spent time in prison to pay for it. But last year, she fled from her homeland and now has found asylum in Canada. Daemi didn’t want to leave Iran even after spending six years in prison and being subjected to physical and psychological torture.
But in 2022, her multiple sclerosis had advanced to such a degree that her physician told her she needed to seek medical care abroad. “I never thought about leaving Iran, even through my darkest days of imprisonment,” said Daemi, 35, in a recent interview with CBC, Canada’s state broadcaster.
“I wouldn’t have left, if it wasn’t for my MS.” And so she undertook a perilous six-month journey that took her from Tehran to St. John’s, the capital of Newfoundland province on the far eastern tip of North America. She started planning that journey while Iran was engulfed in the protests sparked by the death in September 2022 of Mahsa Amini.
Now, the CBC’s Ellen Mauro has interviewed the new exile and breaks down what’s changed and what hasn’t. Daemi had grappled with early symptoms of MS while in prison, but was denied medical care.
By the time she was released in January 2022, the untreated illness had left her right leg completely numb, hindering her mobility.Confronted with a two-year travel ban as part of her prison sentence, Daemi made the decision to leave the country illegally. But Daemi was adamant about not leaving her older sister, Ensieh, behind. Ensieh had been targeted by authorities for her activism and advocacy on Atena’s behalf.
Aware of the high probability that Ensieh would be imprisoned if authorities found out about Atena’s escape, the siblings made the decision to flee together. Atena turned to Front Line Defenders, an Irish group that told her she and her sister would qualify for Canada’s resettlement program.
Without special measures for refugees to resettle in Canada directly from Iran, Daemi says the Irish group urged her to flee to Turkey by May 2023, before that country’s presidential election, a time when security measures at the border were expected to be intensified. Daemi struggled to find a smuggler to get her and her sister into Turkey.
Eager to leave quickly, she found smugglers to take them to Iraq instead. With an intricate plan, Daemi said goodbye to her parents and managed to reunite with her sister in Tehran without being followed by authorities. The next morning, with a hired driver, they headed west. In Marivan, about 20 kilometers from the Iraqi border, the smugglers stuffed Daemi and her sister’s essentials a change of clothing, Daemi’s medical documents and her prison letters into a rice bag. Cloaked in Kurdish attire to obscure their identities, the siblings followed their smugglers toward the Iraqi border on foot, guided only by their whispers.
Daemi says the smugglers also advised them not to stop for water, because it would only slow them down. What was meant to be a swift one-hour passage turned into an arduous 10-hour trek through the mountains. “I couldn’t walk properly.
My body was swollen from injections [from a failed MS treatment]. I was in bad shape,” Daemi recounted. Eventually, she says she had to drag her right leg along to keep up with the rest of the group. “I was terrified. I felt like I saw death in front of my eyes at every second. The anxiety of being discovered. It all made me feel so sick. I vomited many times,” Daemi said.
Meters from the barbed wires marking the Iraqi border, Daemi was overcome by exhaustion and fell into a deep hole. It took three people to pull her out, while the smugglers kept watch for border guards.
Daemi’s arms ended up being severely bruised. When they finally crossed the border shortly thereafter, Daemi was overwhelmed with emotion and sobbed uncontrollably. “It’s finished, it’s finished,” she said one of the smugglers kept whispering to her. “I couldn’t believe we made it. It felt as though a massive lump had been lodged in my throat for years, and now, finally, it was
released,” Daemi said. But even though they had made it to Iraq, their journey was far from over.
In Erbil, the siblings lived in constant fear of being found, often relocating to evade deportation. Daemi says their days were filled with reports about violence against Iranian dissidents by Iranian proxies and missile strikes by the Pasdaran on Iraqi Kurdistan.
With no Canadian representation in Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, Daemi says she con tacted Canada’s then ambassador to Iraq, Gregory Galligan, about their difficult situation. She and Ensieh submitted their paperwork to the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and waited. Fearful of Iranian proxies in Erbil, the Daemi sisters went into seclusion, venturing outside their home only when it was absolutely unavoidable. It took half a year for the siblings to be accepted as part of Canada’s Resettlement Scheme for Human Rights Defenders at Risk. They finally left Iraq in October 2023 and flew to St John’s, Newfoundland, where they now reside as permanent residents.
Today, Daemi still contends with the physical aftermath of the journey, which is further complicated by painful mouth sores caused by another MS medication her body rejected. Nearly a decade since her first MS symptoms, Daemi has yet to find a treatment that effectively addresses her condition.
The siblings receive a modest stipend from the Canadian government to cover their basic expenses though they will need to repay the cost of their plane tickets within a year. While Daemi says she will continue to put a spotlight on political prisoners in Iran, she often struggles emotionally with having to leave the country.
She feels an overwhelming rage toward the Iranian regime. Her goal is to help usher in a revolution where “prison doors swing open, setting all political prisoners free.” “Prison didn’t deter me. I’ve lost everything: my health, youth, family.I’ve yet to achieve my goal. Until that day, I can’t sit idle. My life may be lost, but there are Iranians whose future can still be saved,” she said.
Daemi believes that in light of recent nationwide protests, regime change in Iran is inevitable. But she says it’s the aftermath that activists need to focus on. “When that day comes, how will we protect the hard-earned freedoms we fought for?” she asks.
