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Wife of Journalist Kidnapped by Iranians is 6 Months Pregnant
Her husband was kidnapped by the Iranian government on June 21, and she hasn’t even been able to speak to him in almost two months. Oh yeah, and on top of that, Newsweek reporter Maziar Bahari’s wife happens to be six and a half months pregnant.
The Iranian born Bahari, a Canadian citizen, was in Iran reporting on the turmoil in the wake of the presidential election. Credentialled by the Iranian government, he was there legally and he as reporting back to Newsweek, an internationally respected medium. But when he was grabbed and thrown in jail in June, no one would tell his family what he’d done – including his wife, Paola Gourley, an Italian-English lawyer who is waiting for both the arrival of her baby and return of her husband in London.
Gourley has been making the media rounds pleading for Bahari’s release in the last few weeks – I caught her on Rachel Maddow this week:
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The story hit me both as a journalist and a mother. Being pregnant while your partner isn’t around because of a job is one thing. Being pregnant because your partner has been kidnapped and you don’t know where he is, how he is . . . can either make you cling to your pregnancy and the being inside you or deliver the opposite effect. The natural fears about what kind of world you’re bringing your child into have to be magnified tenfold.
As Gourley told her husband’s employer, she knows that her baby is due in the late fall . . . she doesn’t know if her husband will be there to witness the birth.
The first child for both of them, Gourley doesn’t know the gender. She’ll be putting the sonogram in a sealed envelope so she and Bahari can find out together – should he actually make it home before the baby’s gender is no longer a secret.
Want to help get dad home in time to see his baby? There’s a petition up on Free Maziar Bahari.org – where you can spread the word about his plight.
Image: Newsweek
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