Peace drawn from prison

Ali Shakeri made it all the way through airport security and was stepping onto the plane from Iran to his home in the United States when five men approached him, took him from the airport and arrested him.

Shakeri had been in Iran to care for his sick mother. When she passed away in May, he performed the ceremonial rituals, traveling to three cities to complete the rites.

Shakeri, an Orange County businessman, spent the next 140 days in Evin Prison in Iran — 114 of which were spent in solitary confinement — for reasons unknown to him.

The father of two said he was interrogated almost daily, and during those sessions made to sit facing a wall so as not to see his questioners. Trauma from the imprisonment still affects his speech abilities to this day, he said.

“Whenever trauma happens to you it affects all of your body,” Shakeri said. “Every day I would be interrogated and left in my cell.”

Despite the painful memories, the Lake Forest resident shared this experience with the congregation of the Center for Spiritual Discovery in Costa Mesa Sunday to convey a simple message, peace.

“You have to create a verbiage or vocabulary to talk with yourselves about peace internally,” said Jim Turrell, the center’s senior pastor. He asked the congregation for “tithe of time” allotting just a few minutes of each day to consciously thinking peacefully.

And Shakeri’s story provided the perfect example of staying peaceful internally among very unstable situations.

Shakeri said although he was never physically tortured he was affected with three ongoing realities: uncertainty, loneliness and interrogations.

“I never knew if I was going to get out,” Shakeri said.

He exercised by walking in his cell and doing push ups. He read 37 books to pass the time. In order to use the bathroom, Shakeri had to push a card under his cell door, and his caretakers would blindfold him so he could not identify them.

“I’m trying to put those ugly things in the cell, and close and lock the cell,” Shakeri said. “I want to change the ordeal from hate to love.”

The night of Shakeri’s arrest the family waited at the airport until midnight, not knowing they would not see him for nearly another five months.

On Sept. 24, Shakeri’s wife, Zohreh, received a call at work. Ali called her to say he had been released from solitary confinement, but still was being held by the government.

Many banded together to help the Shakeris, including Amnesty International and Madeline Albright. The Center for Spiritual Discovery wrote letters to the Iranian government pleading for Shakeri’s release.

On Oct. 8 his eldest son flew to New York City where the president of Iran was scheduled to speak at a hotel.

After a friend sneaked him in, Shakeri’s son was able to meet with the president and petition for him to release his father.

The next day Shakeri was released and returned home to the United States.

Shakeri’s message was not to hate Iran, but to show it love. He said some of the most touching moments in prison were watching two people who should hate each other instead showing compassion and hugging.

“I saw two mothers speaking, one’s daughter was a Palestinian suicide bomber. She had killed the other woman’s child,” Shakeri said.

The point of his ordeal, he said, is not to seek revenge.

“I don’t have any choice, revenge never helped anyone,” Shakeri said. “Revenge makes governments afraid of each other.”

KELLY STRODL may be reached at (714) 966-4623 or at kelly.strodl@latimes.com.