TEHRAN — He's been out for months now, but it is never very far from his mind. It can't be. Section 209 of Evin prison has invaded his soul.
Babak Zamanian has been transformed from one of Iran's most outspoken students into one of its walking dead. He's among thousands of political activists and journalists free on bail, but banned from leaving the country. He lives with the possibility of being tossed back into prison at any time. His life is in limbo. He faces a never-ending series of court dates and interrogations. His phone is probably tapped, his movements tracked.
Zamanian, 22, now doubts that it was worth it. Maybe he should have kept quiet and stuck to his studies at Tehran's Amir Kabir University of Technology, he says. He could have become a mining engineer, like his dad wanted, raised a family and read books and newspapers to sate his passion for politics.
At various times Western leaders opposed to Tehran's foreign policies have held out hope that activists such as Zamanian could produce a democratic groundswell against the clerical system.
But what is democracy anyway? Zamanian wonders. And what is freedom in a country such as Iran, bound by tradition and faith? He's not as sure as he used to be.
Protest organizer
Police arrested Zamanian on April 21. He was rounded up along with others at a demonstration against corruption near his university dormitory. He was just a curious onlooker there, he says. But they decided to keep him longer when they realized who he was.
He had been a student leader and organizer of a protest against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit to his campus last December. The president's enforcers had begun systematically targeting students who didn't toe the government's line by putting stars next to their names on the school registry. One star might mean a student couldn't advance to graduate school, regardless of grades.
Three stars might mean a student would be booted off campus. Zamanian suspected he had racked up quite a few stars.
Amir Kabir, also known as Tehran Polytechnic, is among Iran's best universities. Zamanian, the older of two children, grew up in Nahavand, a city of 75,000 in Iran's mountainous west, and scored exceptionally well on exams to win a coveted spot at the college.
But the university is also a long-standing hotbed of student activism. Quick-witted and savvy, Zamanian found himself drawn to the heady campus politics. His father, a schoolteacher, was proud of his son for getting into the school and "left no stone unturned" to dissuade him from politics, he says.
