A former Iranian beauty queen has spoken of the toll on her mental health as she enters her fourth week stranded in a Philippines airport, fearing that she will be deported to Tehran and executed for criticising the Iran regime if her asylum claim fails.
“I’m not in good condition,” Bahareh Zare Bahari, 31, told the Guardian on Wednesday from Manila’s Ninoy Aquino international airport. “My hair has started falling [out, and is in] bad condition because of the stress. Sometimes mentally I become too sick … I have no privacy here, because there’s no door in the room, so I’m always worried when I want to change my clothes.”
Bahari has been detained since 17 October after Iranian authorities put out a red notice about her to Interpol. The notice reportedly relates to an alleged offence committed in Iran, but Bahari – who is also a model and actress – said Tehran was seeking to extradite her to punish her for her politics.
A decision about Bahari’s asylum application is expected on Monday. Until then she must continue to wait with airport officials, sleeping in a constantly lit room and washing in public bathrooms.
“All the walls here are white, the bed is white, everything is white … there is always light here. When I check my phone I can’t understand if it’s 7am or 7pm. I’m losing time, sometimes I’m losing my mind.”
In October it was reported that Interpol’s notice about Bahari related to an alleged assault on an Iranian national in the Philippines, where she had been studying dentistry and competing in beauty contests. However she said Philippine officials told her the charge was in fact related to an unspecified crime that took place in Tehran some time since the start of 2018.
Interpol has been contacted regarding the red notice.
Bahari said she had not been to Iran since 2014 and that Iranian authorities had made a “fake case” to try to silence her for being a vocal opponent of the regime. At the 2018 Miss Intercontinental beauty contest in Manila she made headlines by waving a poster of Reza Pahlavi, the Iranian former crown prince and prominent critic of the current leadership.
She has also spoken about Iranian women’s rights and criticised Islamic law, on which Iran’s legal system is based. “When I got out of Iran I started to be a voice of my people, especially women,” she said. “I always think: ‘How can I make my voice louder?’ So I decided to participate in the beauty pageant. I thought it’d be a good chance to talk about politics.
“The real reason [Tehran is seeking to extradite me] is that the regime is against political activists and is anti-women. They are trying to silence me, to scare other women in Iran to become quiet. The women of Iran are tired of this regime that doesn’t give basic freedom. When they come to the street sharia police stop them and bring them to the police office: ‘Why do you wear clothes like that?’ It’s like we’re in prison.”
Bahari said that seeking asylum in the Philippines, a move made in the airport when she returned to the country from Dubai, was an emergency measure to prevent her being forced onto a plane to Tehran.
“I don’t need a government to spend money on me, I can stand on my feet. I just need a safe place to continue my life.”
