Alfred Yaghobzadeh
Lebanon, 1985
Dimensions: 82 mm x 128 mm
On June 21, 1985, I was in Beirut to photograph anti-American protests. Over 2,000 Hezbollah supporters surrounded a hijacked TWA plane. Three masked men descended its broken stairs and addressed the crowd. I captured everything with my camera. Later that day, outside the Mayflower Hotel, I stepped out of a taxi for a cigarette. A few men casually asked how the protest had gone. As I responded, they grabbed me, threw me into a car, masked my face with something filthy, and drove off.
I was held in a stinking bathroom, then taken to a pitch-black underground cell – no light, no toilet, no water. Insects swarmed. Interrogations began. I
was accused of spying for the U.S. (Newsweek), France, and Israel. I couldn’t understand them fully; my Arabic was limited. At night, I heard screams – other hostages being tortured.
Worst of all were the mock executions. Three times, they told me I had minutes to live. Guns clicked. Nothing fired. The third time, I refused to turn my back. “I want to face you,” I said. They laughed. That laughter was more terrifying than death.
Two days before my release, a familiar voice returned. “We’re going to release you,” he said. “Look at my face. If I come to France, turn me in.” I pulled my shirt down from my face. It was the same man who had kidnapped me. He shook my hand. “Tell the French police it was me who kidnapped you.”
