Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Roxana Saberi Evin Prison Tehran


From playing piano on the prison walls to repeating the "Star Spangled Banner" to keep her spirits up, former Iranian prisoner Roxana Saberi said she got through her nearly three months of confinement by praying to a God she once thought had given up on her.
The jailed journalist talks about her career prior to imprisonment in Iran.

"I learned many lessons, I learned that, do not fear those who can hurt your body but not your soul. No one can hurt your soul unless you let them," Saberi told ABC News' Diane Sawyer in an interview airing Friday on "Good Morning America." "I also learned that, do what you think is right even if you suffer for it, in the end you will be victorious."

Grateful for her freedom and the international push that helped her get home, Saberi said she left Iran with a heavy conscience knowing all the other women would stay behind -- some for months or years -- with the public never knowing their names.

Housed in solitary confinement for her first two weeks in Evin, Saberi was eventually housed with other women, some who were imprisoned for crimes like speaking out in favor of what many consider to be basic human rights.

"When I was moved into the cells with some of the other women, I saw their strength and they were role models to me and I learned from them," she said. "They inspired me. At one point I told myself, I'm not going to cry anymore until the day I become free, and then I want to cry tears of joy. So I, indeed, made it until I became free, fortunately with the international support that I had."

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