Politics Shapes Life for Iranian Physicist

Mohammad Hadi Hadizadeh Yazdi would like nothing more than to teach and do research at Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, in Iran, where he is a physics professor. But throughout his career, the internal and international politics of his country have interfered with such plans.

Hadizadeh is a member of the central council of the Freedom Movement of Iran, an Islamic pro-democracy movement whose supporters come largely from the educated classes. After the shah was toppled in 1979, the FMI had charge of the provisional government for nearly nine months, but resigned in protest at the onset of the American hostage crisis. Since then, the FMI has not been recognized as a legal political party. Hadizadeh, 58, has been watched, interrogated, and jailed (see Physics Today, October 2001, page 28). He is now free on bail, with a prison sentence hanging over him.

Whereas he got into trouble in Iran because of his politics, the problem in the US has been his research. Hadizadeh earned his PhD in nuclear physics in 1978 at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, but when he later tried to return for sabbatical visits, he was not allowed into the country. “I have paid a big price,” he says. “Whenever I go anywhere and say I am a nuclear physicist, eyebrows go up. Somebody always thinks you are involved in building bombs, which is not the case, with me at least.”

With the help of scientists worldwide, notably SLAC physicist Herman Winick—a friend through SESAME, a regional synchrotron light source being built in Jordan—Hadizadeh was finally allowed into the US in October 2003. He is currently a visiting professor at his alma mater. But his family is split up and his future is uncertain. In conversations this spring, Hadizadeh told Physics Today about his life, his work, and his fight for human rights in Iran.

PT: How does it feel to be back at Ohio University?

HADIZADEH: It has been hectic, but it’s getting better. Jack Rapaport, who initiated the invitation and whom I knew from my graduate days, retired and left two days after my arrival. I ended up having open-heart surgery in October 2004. Then, due to some technical problems, our accelerator has been down since January. In the meantime, the group has been to Oak Ridge and Los Alamos a couple of times to take data but, being an Iranian and not having clearance to enter the US national labs, I have not been able to accompany it. We are going to get the machine operational. It is the last stage of my stay here, and I hope to accomplish something before I leave.

PT: What experiments are you hoping to do?

HADIZADEH: After Jack’s departure, Steve Grimes and Carl Brune became group leaders of the experimental low-energy nuclear physics group, and I am working with them. We are studying nuclear energy level densities of some specific nuclei. The work also has astrophysical aspects relating to nucleosynthesis.

PT: Why did you choose to specialize in nuclear physics?

HADIZADEH: When I came here for my PhD, Iran was planning to build over 35 nuclear power plants, and apparently there was a need. But when I got here, I realized that I liked pure nuclear physics more than reactor physics.

PT: After completing your PhD, you became a professor in Iran.

HADIZADEH: Yes, I went to Mashhad, which is the second-largest city in Iran and has one of the largest universities in the country. The universities were on strike. I was hired. I was paid. And I was taking part in demonstrations against the shah!

Due to political turmoil after the collapse of the shah’s regime, we had the chance to run the universities for almost a year, or maybe a bit over one year, and then there was the so-called cultural revolution, and the universities were shut down for three years. The Ayatollah Khomeini believed that most faculty members were American puppets.

PT: What did you do during that period?

HADIZADEH: Most faculty members were assigned duties to translate internationally well-known textbooks into Farsi. Overall, I was involved in the translation of six books, mainly American textbooks. After the reopening of the universities, I was rehired, with some hiccups. It took almost another six years to get tenure. During that time, I was mainly engaged in teaching at the undergraduate and graduate levels, and doing the little bit of research that we could do.

I used to take my students to Tehran to the Atomic Energy Organization to use their small accelerator, which had been given to Iran in 1957 or ′58 by the US government. We took data in pure nuclear physics. But as of 1989, I didn’t get clearance to enter the complex anymore.

PT: Why were you denied clearance?

HADIZADEH: I never knew why, but now I can say there was a good reason: As a member of the opposition group FMI, I was not trustworthy enough to enter a complex which was tightly controlled by the Revolutionary Guards.

PT: So why did they rehire you at the university?

HADIZADEH: Because they needed people like me. They did not have many educated, especially US-educated, teachers. And they knew that I didn’t belong to one of the very dangerous groups that carried out terror activities. We were just critical of the government. So they could tolerate me. That’s why I was rehired.

PT: With no access to the accelerator, what’s been your research focus?

HADIZADEH: We have a humble lab in Mashhad, where we do applied nuclear physics research using different neutron sources, either americium–beryllium or plutonium–beryllium. Mainly we use those sources to study body composition or detect plastic bombs.

PT: Body composition? Do you mean the fat-to-muscle ratio?

HADIZADEH: Yes. You expose the human body to neutrons, and see the signatures of what’s going on inside in terms of some gamma rays.

We can produce theses at the level of an MSc, not a PhD. In order to have more advanced topics, which could be the subject for a PhD student, you have to have access to accelerators.

PT: But you have had PhD students.

HADIZADEH: Just one. I was reluctant to have more because even my student couldn’t get a visa to go to Australia to work on an experiment. According to the protocol we have in Iran, all PhD students can get a chance to study abroad for nine months, paid for by the government. But again, the subject of nuclear physics was a problem. Forget about the US or UK. Even the Australian government didn’t grant the visa.

PT: You have had your own visa problems. What happened?

HADIZADEH: I came for my PhD in December 1972. In those days, it was everybody’s dream to come to the US and do a PhD. From all over the world, not just Iran. I did my bachelor’s degree back home, and then I served my military service, and in five weeks I was here. But in 1987, when I got the chance to go for a sabbatical leave for one year, and again in 1994, all my attempts for a US visa didn’t work. So I went to the UK. In 1994, I went to Melbourne, Australia.

PT: What was the work environment like in the years leading up to your arrest in 2001?

HADIZADEH: It was difficult. As long as I was busy with my work, the government was happy. But as soon as my signature appeared at the bottom of an open letter, they would get hard on me. When you are teaching, and you are not sure whether, when you get out of class, you are going to be arrested, you cannot concentrate totally.

During that time, my house was searched. My personal family albums were confiscated. The old letters I had were confiscated. I was not having a very happy life.

PT: Did you continue to sign open letters?

HADIZADEH: Yes, always. I never gave up, though sometimes university officials would privately advise me to stop. I said, Well, I don’t get involved in any political activity inside the university. When I go out, that is my private life.

PT: What triggered your arrest?

HADIZADEH: The reformists, including FMI, had decided to support President Khatami for a second term. The hardliners gradually got this impression that the outside world was looking at us as an alternative to rule the country. They decided to just crush us.

They collected over 50 people in two phases. We were kept in small cages, I would say 1.5 meters by 2 meters. That’s it. No windows, just a very bright light bulb that was on day and night. You could go out of the cell for 20 minutes a day, five days a week, blindfolded, to walk for a while. And they would take us to the toilet five or six times a day.

They kept me for 128 days. For 7 days, somebody else was there. The rest of it, I was in solitary confinement. It’s a bad, bad experience. I am short of words to describe it. Sometimes you would like to hit your head against the wall and get rid of life. And sometimes I would have my fingers crossed to have another session of interrogation, because that would be a change. I would have someone to talk to.

They didn’t have anything against me, but they were trying to make an espionage case out of a friendship I had with an American. He had been an Ohio student—I knew him from the cafeteria—but later he studied law and then joined the navy. By confiscating my computer, they realized that I had exchanged e-mails with this guy who happened to be a naval officer. The interrogator used to tell me that an American naval officer cannot not be a CIA agent…. My interrogator spent over 80 hours trying to come up with something.

PT: Why did they release you?

HADIZADEH: Actually, I was the first male member of the central council of the FMI to be released. When I came out, I realized that a petition that was signed by scientists, including 33 Nobel laureates, had worked. Herman Winick was the driving force behind the petition. Also, they knew that I had some students who were to finish their theses. They decided to release me to get back to work.

About two and a half months after my release, I had my trial. It took three hours. The judge said, “You have signed this open letter.” I said yes. “Do you stand by what it said?” Yes. He said, “You have criticized the late Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini.” I said, “Well, I have the right to do so. We didn’t have a revolution to substitute one dictator with another.”

As a result of this fight with the judge, I was promoted from rank 10 to rank 3 among the defendants in terms of sentencing. Number one was the former interior minister of Iran, who received a 10-year jail sentence. Number two was the former mayor of Tehran, who got nine years. And number three was me. I got nine months for insulting the Ayatollah and eight years for trying to undermine the regime.

PT: Where do things stand now?

HADIZADEH: The court of appeals upheld the sentence. That’s when I decided to leave. I was free on bail, and made some inquiries and realized I was not barred from leaving the country. I talked to Herman Winick from a safe phone. Herman talked to friends in Germany and France and they provided me an opportunity to go [to the European Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory in Grenoble] and wait for my American visa.

My visa was released, according to Herman Winick, after the American Association for the Advancement of Science spoke with people at the State Department.

Apparently, the Tehran Revolution Court was happy to see me go by myself, because the price of putting a person like me back in jail would have been high—especially the unrest it could create among students.

My bail is about $125 000. Three friends put up their apartments in Tehran. They didn’t accept my own house because it’s not in Tehran. If they call me to report to start serving my sentence, and I do not go, the judiciary is going to confiscate those three apartments.

PT: How are conditions in Iran for science, more broadly?

HADIZADEH: Scientifically, we are behind. In chemistry, in biology, geology, Iranians are doing well. In theoretical physics, there are some groups of people who are doing decent work. But in experimental work, I would say that nothing at the international level can be achieved in Iran.

The government has not invested enough. We are using facilities from the days of the shah. Nothing much has been added.

PT: In the past few years, competitors from Iran have done very well in the International Physics Olympiad.

HADIZADEH: Yes. We have smart students. They get special training. The system is investing a lot of money because it provides propaganda. And any male student who gets a medal is exempted from military service. But if one of those students goes to university and then needs something, it’s not easily available, not anymore. The majority of them go abroad. Iran has the highest rate of brain drain right now. For the total population, the death rate is five-point-something per thousand per year, and brain drain is two-and-a-half per thousand per year. If I am not mistaken, over 93% of all those who have won medals in international competitions are abroad.

PT: What’s needed to improve the situation?

HADIZADEH: Iran is not going to prosper unless we solve our political problems. The government shut down 100 newspapers five years ago. To rule at will, you have to keep people uneducated. Right now, over 25% of educated people are out of work. Because the political system is either corrupt or obsolete, everything is going down the drain.

PT: What are your plans?

HADIZADEH: I don’t know. I am trying to find a decent job with a decent salary. My younger daughter has been accepted to do a PhD in physics with a university fellowship at Northwestern [University] in Chicago. My wife and older daughter are in Iran. Since I have been here, I have been engaged in activities that would add to my charges—going around and giving talks on human rights in Iran. If the government decides to drop all the charges, I would go back. But if conditions deteriorate, I have to wait and avoid this heavy sentence.