Watch our full interview with Hamid Ghassemi-Shall on the Saturday, October 19 edition of Global’s 16×9.
For the first time in five years, Hamid Ghassemi-Shall can wake up and start the day anew.
Imprisoned in Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison since his arrest in 2008, “it’s like rewinding a tape, on and on,” he told Global News in an interview.
“You’ve been programmed” – to wake up, eat, socialize, walk in an enclosed courtyard, wait to get locked inside for evening head count.
Ghassemi-Shall, who came to Canada from Iran in 1979, was arrested while visiting his mother and charged with espionage. His brother Alborz died in Evin Prison after interrogation.
Ghassemi-Shall arrived back in Toronto a free man Thursday evening, his wife Antonella Mega at his side after years of fighting for his freedom.
As Ghassemi-Shall waited for the Canadian government to broker his release with the Irianian authorities who insisted he was a spy, he became accustomed to the bittersweet feeling of bidding farewell to fellow inmates luckier than he.
“You say ‘farewell’ to your friend, you’re happy that he’s leaving, he’s released, but you feel sorry for yourself that your case is not moving: Nothing is changing,” he said.
“It’s like rewinding a tape – nothing changes. Now, you are out: All of a sudden, you see everything has been changed,” he said. “You can walk as long as you want. Anywhere you want.”
Is he angry at the regime who kept him incarcerated, only to release him along with other political prisoners as Iran’s new president makes historic overtures to the West?
“Yes, I am angry,” he said. “They took the life of my brother. They took five years of my life, my family, my wife, my mom, my sister, my nephew, my sister in law. They took away everything from them.
“Yeah, I am angry. But I never came down to my knees.”
Watch: Hamid Ghassemi-Shall returns to Toronto
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