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On March 24th, just a day after 15 British sailors were seized by Iran, I got word from my father that the Iranian government had given me permission to enter and exit the country. Iranians celebrate New Year’s on the first day of spring, March 20th, and two weeks of holidays ensue, so I was in a rush to get to Iran during this holiday window. I flew out of Qatar March 30th and headed to my village, where I stayed until the standoff ended.

My Persian is not fluent enough to fully comprehend the news stories, but a lot of the images spoke for themselves. I closely watched the news of the release. I must say I was incredulous when I saw Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (Iran’s President) shaking the sailor’s hands and essentially personally sending them off upon their release. There can’t be a comparable situation in history where what essentially were POWs shake the hand of the leader of the country who is releasing them. I also noticed the sailors were wearing suits, which I know they didn’t have when they were taken to Iran. The Iranian media also showed bags they were sending the sailors home with full of souvenirs. This was followed by an interview with three or four of the sailors, which was in English and subtitled. The sailors seemed full of praises for Iran and its treatment of them. One sailor even said he’d like to come back to Iran one day.

On April 8th, a few days after the standoff ended, I finally got a hold of an English language newspaper, The Tehran Times, on my flight to Tehran. As one would expect, there was a different side of the story being talked about in Iran. A front page headline read “Iranian Diplomat Says He Was Tortured in Iraq.” Other headlines read “Iran Denies British Soldiers Mistreated,” and “Staged Media Show Cannot Cover Up British Intrusions: Hosseini.” The most notable thing I heard from the people: they asked what about the five Iranian embassy officials who were taken in Iraq? They had been held for three months when the British were released.