From revolution to exile: The journey of Iranian activist Nasrin Bassiri

A story of activism and resilience from Iran's turmoil to Berlin's refuge

Originally published on Global Voices

This story is part of a series called “Portraits of exile” that delves into the experiences of Iranian women in the diaspora as they pursue freedom and showcase their resilience. The story comes as a commemoration of the tragic passing of Mahsa Jina Amini, a Kurdish woman who was killed at the age of 22 at the hands of the morality police for not fully covering her hair. This incident ignited widespread protests in Iran, which persist to this day despite escalating government oppression.

When the Pahlavi dynasty in Iran collapsed in 1979, Nasrin Bassiri, then 33 years old, was among the Iranians abroad who promptly returned to their country.

As a political activist with a leftist background, she eagerly flew back to the country, aspiring to live freely now that the Shah's reign had ended.

She would have arrived even before the first leader of the Islamic revolution Ruhollah Khomeini, “if she could have found tickets.” Instead, she arrived two days later, she remembers.

Her return did not unfold according to her wishes and expectations. With Khomeini’s return to Tehran from Paris in February of that year, the clergy was seizing power and opportunities diminished for those who did not conform to their authority.

Nasrin holds a PhD in political science from the University of Graz in Austria, and lived in Berlin, Germany, before the Iranian Revolution, where she taught at the Berlin School of Economics.

“I thought it was impossible for religious extremists to come to power. I believed Iran had many active, educated women, and it seemed unlikely that extremists could gain control,” she recalls. “I had underestimated the religious structure and the power of the mosques, which served as their base. I had underestimated their potential for violence,” Bassiri adds as she recounts her life story to me as we sit in her apartment in Berlin, where the door opens to a garden surrounded by poplar trees and flower bushes.

The violent nature of the new regime became evident through the mass executions of several thousand political opponents, primarily leftists, in prisons during the 1980s. This violence extended beyond Iran's borders, targeting dissidents abroad. Among them were four Kurdish political activists gunned down in 1992 at the Mykonos restaurant in Wilmersdorf, Berlin, one of whom was a friend of Nasrin.

Escaping Iran, back to activism in Berlin

Four years and nine months after her arrival in Iran, during which she taught at Tehran University, co-founded the National Union of Women, and lived in hiding for two years, Bassiri was forced to flee the country.

As Tehran University faced its darkest days with closure under the new regime's “Cultural Revolution,” she made her escape to Turkey. With the help of a local guide —often mistakenly called a “smuggler” — she crossed the border on foot.

Bassiri arrived in Berlin as an asylum seeker in December 1983, and her life in exile began. She recalls feeling sick at the sight of the bus waiting to transfer passengers at the city’s airport because it symbolized the reality of her return. She had risked her life to escape Iran, yet found herself unhappy to be back in Germany. Despite financial constraints, she resumed her political activism, now directed against the ruling ayatollahs in Tehran.

Living in West Berlin, the capital of West Germany at the time, Bassiri became part of a community that provided refuge to many Iranian political dissidents in the 1980s. These individuals initially entered East Berlin before making their way to the safety of West Berlin. Leveraging her proficiency in German, Bassiri assisted the large waves of Iranian refugees, addressing their day-to-day issues.

She became a member of the Berlin Refugee Council, the sole German Refugee Council at the time, and played a key role in establishing the Center for Iranian Political Refugees, which continues to operate in Berlin’s Neukölln district. From 1984 to the end of 2023, 215,451 Iranians sought refuge in Germany, according to the Center.

Bassiri was also instrumental in shaping various active Iranian groups, including women's and media groups, by designing and directing the Persian program on Radio Multikulti of RBB (Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg) for Iranians living in Berlin. She also contributed to other media outlets, wrote a blog, and authored a bestseller book that sheds light on the situation in Iran.

After several decades of helping to institutionalize the Iranian civil society in exile in Berlin and receiving both admiration and criticism along the way, Bassiri retired from her professional role as the Equality Officer of the Weissensee School of Art in 2019. However, she has remained active as a journalist, contributing to German media. In recent years, she has also been a member of the online magazine Iran Journal, which provides information about events in Iran in German.

Finding ‘home’ among Iranians

“From a practical point of view, Berlin is my home,” Bassiri tells me. “I have an apartment here and administrative tasks in my life. But, from an emotional standpoint, Berlin is not my home. It never was. I spend most of my time with Iranians. There are aspects of Iranian culture and community that I prefer,” she explains.

For Bassiri , the Zan, Zendegi, Azadi (“Woman, Life, Freedom”) revolutionary movement in Iran, which persists to this day through the everyday resistance of Iranian women inside the country, is different from previous movements she has witnessed. “Even many of the most ordinary men in Iran noticed it and were standing behind women,” she explains. “They believe that they should no longer let gender discrimination against women define them. When young girls were protesting, giving their lives for freedom, even a concept like bravery, which for so long had been considered manly, was no longer a manly matter,” she adds.

“The power always used to come from the barrel of a gun. This time, the power of Iranian women came from their passion for freedom as they burnt their scarves, danced or sang in the streets of Iranian cities, and it will be unstoppable,” Nasrin Bassiri affirms. The 79-year-old does not define herself as an optimistic person, but for her, the 2022 uprising is irreversible.

Written by Maryam Mirza