Witness Statement of Bahram

Name:                                      Bahram*

Interviewing Organization:   Iran Human Rights Documentation Center (IHRDC)

Date of Interview:                        April 8, 2024

Interviewer:                                      IHRDC Staff

This statement was prepared pursuant to an audio interview with the mother of Mr. Bahram. There are 6 paragraphs in the statement.

The views and opinions of the witness expressed herein do not necessarily reflect those of the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center.

*Pseudonym assigned to protect the witness’s identity.

Statement

1. I am the mother of one of the victims of the mehrieh [a marital financial entitlement owed by a husband to his wife]. My son has been dealing with the mehrieh issue for twelve years. He owns nothing anyway. His ex-wife obtained divorce in absentia ten years ago. Her mehrieh was 500 gold coins. She waived 400 of them and retained 100. Prior to the divorce being granted, unfortunately, my son did not attend any of the court hearings. Only once, after much pleading on my part, we filed a claim concerning his wife’s non-compliance [tamkin]. My son came to court on that occasion and signed the necessary papers. The ruling was issued in our favor, and we obtained a judgment confirming his wife’s non-compliance. However, my son did not want to divorce his wife because they had a child together. For that reason, he did not attend any of the subsequent court hearings. In the end, the court ruled in the wife’s favor, enabling her to obtain a divorce in absentia by waiving 400 gold coins and retaining 100. At the time, they had a five-year-old son, whom I raised myself. He is now 17 years old.
2. My son’s ex-wife left us alone until my son remarried. After that, out of jealousy, she moved to enforce payment of her mehrieh. For the past four or five years, she has kept us caught up in this matter. She keeps coming to our house with an arrest warrant for my son. Four years ago, they even arrested my son and took him away. Early one morning, as my son was leaving for work, his ex-wife arrived with enforcement officers. No matter how much I pleaded with them, they would not listen.
3. My son spent seven months in Evin prison. In court, my son’s ex-wife claimed that he owned a house and a car. My son replied, “Prove it to the judge, and I’ll pay your mehrieh in one lump sum.” I obtained a record from the vehicle registration authorities and added it to his case file, showing that my son had not owned a car for the previous seven or eight years. I also obtained records from the banks, which showed that, apart from his government subsidy account, he had no other bank accounts. I did all of this to get my son out of prison. I even took two witnesses to court. But the judge paid no attention to what my son was saying—that he had a wife and child and was heavily in debt. The court ordered an initial payment of 35 gold coins. I appealed, and the amount was reduced to five coins. While in prison, my son repeatedly applied for a reduction, but the order requiring five coins remained unchanged. In the end, we had no choice but to pay the five gold coins so that my son could be released.
4. The judge was Naser Feraqi of Branch 278 of the Shahid Mofatteh Judicial Complex. He is a very strict judge. He set the initial payment at five gold coins and ordered that one coin be paid every four months. We objected, saying that it was beyond our means, but our request was denied. We then applied to have the payment period extended, but because my son’s ex-wife had an arrest warrant for him and he was unable to appear in court, the application was rejected. We went to the appeal court, but they told us that since the original order had already been reduced from thirty five gold coins to five, they would not accept any further appeal. It is as if these judges do not actually live in Iran! They have no understanding of what we are going through!
5. Gold coins have become extremely expensive, and they are beyond our means. At present, my son still owes eleven gold coins. Recently, his second wife gave birth to their child. Because of the cost of the delivery, my son was unable to save enough money to pay the gold coins he owed his ex-wife. His ex-wife now has an arrest warrant for him, with authority to enter premises with the assistance of a locksmith, and my son is on the run. With prices this high, the only options are to go on the run or go to prison. My son genuinely cannot afford to pay. So far, he has had to run from the officers many times. His ex-wife has come after him with a mobile arrest warrant, and they have even searched our home several times. They have also gone to my son’s workplace on many occasions. If they had arrested my son in front of his wife and child, he would have been deeply humiliated. May God provide a way out and free us from this law.
6. On several occasions, we went with family elders to speak to my son’s ex-wife’s family in the hope that they might be willing to work something out with us, but they refused. We told them that my son did not have the money to pay the eleven gold coins and asked them to accept whatever he could afford to pay. My son’s ex-wife’s parents are the ones standing in the way. Their daughter does whatever they tell her. They are greedy people! At the same time, they say, “All we want is to make your son suffer. He should stay in prison until he rots there!” They are extremely unreasonable and spiteful people. They would rather never agree to anything. My son’s ex-wife is actually my niece. May God curse my brother and my niece!