Thankfully, both my family’s and Yegi’s stories had a happy ending: shortly before the pandemic, her parents were guests in my home, bearing a gift of Persian saffron. + Major support for Amanpour and Company is provided by Candace King Weir, the Leila and Mickey Straus Family Charitable Trust, Jim Attwood and Leslie Williams, Mark J. We bonded over what it’s like to leave your family behind forever, thinking that you’ll never see them again.

Yegi’s parents were still trapped in Iran and she was unable to see them because of Donald Trump’s Muslim ban. (Jason has written a book about his experience, which was also made into a podcast.)īut as we grew close, I could see that the torment did not end with the prison gates being flung open. Jason and his incredible wife Yeganeh, an Iranian journalist who was also imprisoned for several months, were freed as part of the Iran nuclear deal negotiated by the Obama administration, and they became instant celebrities when they moved to Washington upon their release. Jason and I met shortly after his release from the notorious Evin prison in Tehran, where he had served a year and a half, much of it in solitary confinement, on bogus charges of espionage. So I turned immediately to my friend and Washington Post journalist, Jason Rezaian, who understands the dynamics in the country perhaps better than anyone outside its borders. It became an international story for all the obvious reasons, including teenage girls flipping the bird to some of the scariest men in the world. Last month, protests erupted in Iran after Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman, was killed by Iranian authorities for not wearing her hijab properly.

Julia ioffe body