Published: June 25, 2009 11:06 pm      

NORTH TONAWANDA: Iranian captive, one-time NT native, now free

World traveler Michelle May, a one time North Tonawanda resident now in her 30s and living in California, made national headlines recently when she was briefly detained in Iran following historic protests in Tehran.

She relocated to Dubai following the ordeal last Friday, and spoke with CNN’s Kiran Chetry for an interview posted online Wednesday.

May flew to Tehran prior to headline-grabbing protests earlier this month. It was her third trip to the Middle Eastern nation in more than a decade. May, a dual Irish-American citizen, traveled under an Irish passport.

She recalled a scene usually reserved for the movies, in which the cab she was riding in was stopped by men on motorcycles. She was whisked into a waiting car before being driven around and subjected to an hour-long interrogation.

In the interview, May pointed out she was not held longer probably because she is not a terrorist or a spy. But she became a sort of journalist for one of the few stories able to escape Iran recently, in the wake of hotly contested presidential elections and the kind of protests not seen there since the 1979 Iranian Revolution.

Bloody street-level clashes had just flared up between supporters of incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and those of reform candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi.

The riots were in large part peaceful, it has been reported, but also remarkably violent in the wake of the reform candidate’s announced loss and suspicions of voter fraud.

May had front row seats, before her kidnapping and brief detainment by Basij militia operatives working on behalf of Ahmadinejad recently in Tehran, the nation’s capital.

The following is a composite of her talk with CNN:

“I went because I have been there two times before and I feel very connected to the county and the people there ... I have a lot of friends. So when I was watching the election, the run up to the election and the election results I just felt a real need to be there with my friends. I just wanted to be a part of what could possibly be history. So I made arrangements last minute,” she said.

She said she had been sitting in an Internet cafe, trying to download a CNN report on Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s post-election prayer. A male Iranian stranger had helped her hail a cab to meet a friend for lunch.

The rest is like something out of the movies.

“And about a half an hour into that ride, there are two motorbikes on either side of my taxi — (the male acquaintance) is on the back of one of them .... They pulled me over and I knew what was happening. I was terrified.”

She started screaming.

The once-helpful male acquaintance got in the cab, “and he told me I had to go with them,” she said.

“I stood up to get out of the taxi — I thought ‘I’ll make a scene on the street and maybe they’ll leave me alone. However, that didn’t work, I think because everybody’s so terrified of the Basij right now ... They took me by either arm and then they put me into a car that had pulled up,” she told CNN.

They then held her in that fashion for roughly an hour.

“OK we’ll stop,” she recalled the man who spoke English saying when they passed a police station and she banged on the window.

“They really had nothing on me. I’m not a terrorist and I’m not a spy,” she said.

They recommended she go to Dubai, which she did before speaking with the media.

The interview included rare comments on the feeling among Iran’s citizens amid all the upheaval.

“Honestly everyone I know there is just scared,” May said. “Since last Friday I don’t know anybody who is actually going out and protesting and if they are, like I said, they know that they’re risking their lives but they’re so fed up that they’re willing to do that.”

“It’s definitely a very scary time. It’s a strange time. It’s different than how it normally is there.”

You can view the full CNN interview by typing http://www.cnn.com/video/?iref=videoglobal into your Web browser, then clicking on the link near the bottom of the page.

Back here in North Tonawanda, childhood friend and schoolmate Sue Wadowski recalls May as a “quiet, smart girl with a good head on her shoulders.”

Though the two haven’t spoken much since graduation from North Tonawanda High School’s class of 1990, she said it’s no surprise May has traveled so extensively.

She mentioned May’s blog, meshelmay.com/blog, a site featuring accounts of several humanitarian voyages to some of the world’s poorest or politically volatile countries in recent years.

An entry entitled “An American in Iran” includes a section called frequently asked questions.

A chapter called “Why Iran?” details how May had long wanted to visit the country and first did so in the summer of 1997.

“I found myself in awe of the land’s beauty, and the staggering kindness of the people,” she wrote “... many people in ‘the West’ don’t realize this is an essential part of Persian culture and also a major part of Islam — taking care of your guest, even if they are simply a tourist in your country. Back home, we stand much to learn from this custom.”

She goes on to say she felt safer in Iran than her hometown of San Francisco. Also, she writes, her dual citizenship allowed her to travel as a citizen of Ireland, and unlike Americans, she can travel independently there, without an official escort or tour group.

“I fund myself,” she writes of her ability to travel, after noting she now works in the California public school system, preempting the presumed question, ‘are you independently wealthy?’

“I work very hard. Save. Don’t spend money on too many frivolous things.”

Contact reporter Neale Gulley at 693-1000, ext. 114.