Both a woman and a dissident, the teller of this tale has two strikes against her in the Islamic Republic of Iran. She writes about a very small but very telling event, when the Men in Black, the Basij enforcers, enter a café in Tehran and warn the owner of what can happen if politics is discussed, or hijabs worn askew with hair visible, on the premises. It’s not the kind of thing that the New York Times is likely to publish, or the BBC be likely to broadcast. So I thought I’d post it here.
More about the writer can be found here: “The Secret Life of a Woman Journalist in Iran,” by Maddie Ali, Algemeiner, August 13, 2026:
IRAN — I am at a corner table, coffee cooling in my hands, when two men walk in wearing black. In Iran, you learn to recognize it without being told twice: plain clothes, no insignia, but black is its own uniform — the Basij intelligence. The entire room registers their presence in the same half-second, and everyone goes quiet.
They don’t come toward me. They go straight to the counter, to my friend who owns the cafe, and pull her aside, close enough that I can watch, too far to hear. But I don’t need to hear. I know that stillness, that fear of interrogation.
My mind starts racing. Should I leave? Have they finally come for me? Have they discovered the articles I have written? Do they know about my work as a journalist? Have they decided that this is enough to accuse me of collaborating with a foreign country? Is this the moment my work ends, and prison begins?
Then another thought cuts through the panic. What if they are not here for me at all? What if they had come for my friend? After all, she was on the frontlines during the anti-regime demonstrations earlier this year.
My coffee remains untouched. Time no longer moves.
One of the Basiji takes out a paper and hands it to my friend. The men return to the counter, unhurried, while she signs it. I sit still, not daring to move, because moving means being seen. And today, just being seen is a risk.
Only after they leave do I realize I have been holding my breath. I let out a quiet sigh and walk over to my friend behind the counter.
“What was that about?” I ask, trying to steady my voice.
She looks exhausted more than frightened, as if this is simply part of running a business in Iran.
“They came to warn us,” she says. “Everyone in the cafe has to comply with the hijab law, and no one can discuss politics here.” She hesitates for a second before completing the sentence.
“They said if we don’t, they will seal the cafe.”
The men in black are gone, but the fear they brought remains. Conversations resume in lowered voices; people glance instinctively toward the entrance, and the cafe no longer feels like a refuge.
My name is Maddie, and I live a double life in Iran. To most people, I am an ordinary Iranian woman; in secret, I am a journalist and a human rights activist….
This tale could have been written in a Parisian café — say, La Coupole or Deux Magots — by a member of the Réseau Gallia in Occupied France. Iran is occupied in a different way, not by foreign conquerors, but by those obedient black-clad imbeciles who enforce what the men at the top, in thrall to a fanatic faith, demand of them.
Timmy says
What would it take for the citizens to overtake that system? Should they have killed those two, left them out in the street in the gutter? Serious question. The Iranians show zero signs of uprising and killing these people, the regime is as in control as ever. The protests where so many were killed, are just a memory.
40 rounds says
My gosh, is this the 21st century? Iran is the North Korea of the middle east and more of this coming soon to countries that embrace the red green menace
Wellington says
And yet this evil and stupid rubbish has gone on for almost half a century. Are the Persian people this pathetic to have allowed this for almost half a century? Seems so.
How much more time do the Persian people need, assuming the Persian people are not largely a nation of sheep, to displace the religious nut-jobs running Iran since 1979? Yes, how much more time?
And so continues functioning the worst nation on Earth, easily the most destabilizing to geopolitical and economic concerns. And the Persian people are doing exactly what to end this debacle of a polity in our era?
I’ll put it another way, to wit, there are many sub-performing people on the planet, many, but the Persians are the worst of the worst. Know of any others who might be put first here? There are indeed several other “worthy” candidates for this dubious distinction, such as the Arabs, Russians, North Koreans, Chinese, Mexicans, etc. But no nation over the past half century has been a greater downer in sundry ways than has Iran. Assuming this is so as I have contended, who is more to blame than the Persian people themselves? Yes, who?
࿗Infidel࿘ says
Right now, within Iran, fuel subsidies have ended, and there are endless lines at the pumps. As a result, there is a lot more discontent w/ the regime even among regime supporters, let alone opponents
One thing that I heard yesterday is that the IRGC is now itching to resume the war, since it’s a lot easier for them handling the war than it is handling their restive population, particularly when the Pahlavi supporters are joined by the regime supporters over common issues, like runaway inflation, scarcity of fuel and thereby everything else and so on. I’m now as a result more supportive of US just continuing the blockade and strangulating the islamic republic like a boa constrictor, until it implodes. Hopefully, the latter happens sooner rather than later, so that Iranians can get a transition government and start working towards a democracy
OLD GUY says
Maddie is a brave woman, if caught she will be executed violently. She has shown the western world what Islam is and few will recognize the danger of the migration invasion of islam into the west.