348: What if you were a political hostage in Iran?
This Is Actually Happening
Wondery
4.6 • 9.9K Ratings
🗓️ 14 January 2025
⏱️ 73 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
After accidentally crossing the border into Iran on a hike with her friend and her partner, a woman is detained and held for over a year in solitary confinement, awakening to the sobering realities of oppression and the fight for a new path to justice.
Today’s episode featured Sarah Shourd. Sarah Shourd is an award-winning narrative change leader and a somatic coach trained in trauma transformation. She is an author, playwright, trauma-informed investigative journalist, former Stanford John S. Knight Fellow and co-founder of The End of Isolation Tour and Documentary. For over a decade, since being held as a political hostage by the Iranian government, her work has focused on exposing the impact of mass incarceration and using storytelling to promote healing and reimagine justice outside prisons and jails.
You can contact Sarah at [email protected] or on Instagram @SarahShourd.
You can find out more about Sarah and her work at: sarahshourd.com, shourdsomatics.com, endofisolation.org, sarahshourd.substack.com
Producers: Whit Missildine, Andrew Waits, Aviva Lipkowitz
Content/Trigger Warnings: SA, divorce, domestic violence/abuse, drug/alcohol use, arrest/prison, solitary confinement, arrest abroad, divorce, explicit language
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Intro Music: ""Illabye"" – Tipper
Music Bed: Ambient Themes
Services
If you or someone you know is struggling with the effects of trauma or mental illness, please refer to the following resources:
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National Sexual Assault Hotline (RAINN): 1-800-656-HOPE (4673)
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Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Wondry Plus subscribers can listen to exclusive episodes of This Is Actually Happening |
| 0:05.0 | by joining Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts. |
| 0:09.0 | This Is Actually Happening features real experiences that often include traumatic events. |
| 0:14.0 | Please consult the show notes for specific content warnings on each episode |
| 0:17.0 | and for more information about support services. |
| 0:32.0 | Hi listeners. As we begin this new year, we've been imagining new ways to evolve the show, |
| 0:36.5 | and to do this, we'd like to ask for your help. We've come up with a short audience survey, |
| 0:37.9 | which you can find linked in our show notes and on our social media pages. We'd love to hear your opinions and feedback. You're |
| 0:42.7 | an essential part of the storytelling on this show, and it's your chance to have your voice heard. |
| 0:47.5 | So we'd really appreciate a few minutes of your time to share your point of view. Again, you can |
| 0:51.6 | find the link in the show notes to this episode, on our Instagram and on the Facebook group. And now onto our first new episode of 2025, |
| 1:00.6 | the harrowing story of Sarah Shored. For today's episode, what if you were a political hostage |
| 1:05.9 | in Iran? You don't know if you're ever going to get out. |
| 1:12.3 | And when you have no power, who are you, becomes a big question. |
| 1:17.5 | What does it mean to have an identity when you have no agency, |
| 1:22.4 | when all of a sudden you are at the discretion of the state? |
| 1:35.6 | Music you are at the discretion of the state. From Wondery, I'm Witt Misseldine. |
| 1:39.3 | You're listening to This Is Actually Happening. |
| 1:48.7 | Thank you. to this is actually happening. Episode 3.45. |
| 1:52.5 | What if you were a political hostage in Iran? |
| 1:59.7 | One tree. Thank you. I'm Afwa Hirsch. |
| 2:10.9 | I'm Peter Franke Pern. |
... |
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