I knew them and that's what happened

I live in Los Angeles and have recently been browsing here, I was not surprised to see that Betty's story was discussed on this website considering the impact the movie has made, but the amount of contradictions and assumptions of people who really think they know what happened or been to Iran.

Shamseh Najafi is my aunt, married to my father's cousin. She currently resides in Seattle, as for her sister Zari, she was interned in a hospital in Iran in 2001.

Both sisters have spent great deal of time the last few months with Betty in Tehran, although her book mentions them briefly. What I meant to say was that from that point on, only family and close friends know what really happened:

Betty was seeking advice to get a divorce from Moody while still in the US end of 1983, in fact she was looking for legal ways to obtain Mahtab's custody, but Moody was unaware of all that back then. Once in Iran in the summer of 1984, he suggested that they prolong their vacation by weeks and meant it (nothing more), to which a clash followed, and only then did Betty announce that she wanted a divorce and leave with Mahtab.

Moody forced Betty to stay in Iran despite her pleas in order to resolve the matter, the fact was that he wanted to keep Mahtab, and “the story” would not have happened had he obtained a certainty to share custody of his daughter.
No long after having kept them in Iran, Betty denounced him and filed at the “American section in the Swiss embassy” for divorce and expatriation with Mahtab.
On one hand, the Islamic Republic rewards children to the father. On the other, Moody was a paranoid coward who fearing he would face (divorce) court and the certainty of losing his daughter in the US, only then decided that he and MAHTAB wouldn't go back. Betty was allowed to.

Betty stayed willingly because of Mahtab… until her ill father came to a critical condition some year later. Moody bought a return ticket via Zurich and she refused to leave. She was seeing someone else, despite the tough Islamic regulations, but in Iran, trust me it’s common despite the facts… all discreet. She no longer got along with Moody even in a platonic way and was rarely home anyways.
So Betty took off with the help of Ali Oskouian who paid for the trip….
She never escaped through the mountains to Turkey like her book says, but to an island south of Iran and by boat to Dubai where she boarded a flight to London. She would have never survived a stroll through Iranian mountains, let alone with her 6 year old. It takes full moral and physical strength and a lot of training.

FACTUAL POINTS:

Moody used to beat Betty, they fought all the time, and she would get bruised up. The beating stopped the second year when they moved into their own duplex, because he lost interest in her by then, and she finally knew how to cope with him. But it was obvious to outsiders that there wasn’t any harmony in the couple. However, Moody never laid a hand on Mahtab. Mahtab herself was never to confirm that.

Moody's family never helped Betty; or him for that matter. They are selfish, they are dirty, and they do not represent the elite like Betty thought or made believe, they are as simple as one can get, but abide by society rules and post revolution Islamic rules to the bone.

Betty was never locked away nor seperated from Mahtab. It’s pure fiction.
Mahtab went to school and Betty wasn't forced to sit with her, nor was she beaten by leaving school or home, she went wherever she wanted at any time.

Moody never refused them anything, was of a genuine Middle Eastern generosity to both, but loving to his daughter only. He simply adored her, more than he ever loved Betty.

Moody never envisaged returning to the US himself because he feared court, and had a complex of humiliation, he hated being bullied or humiliated (like all Iranian males for that matter), but mostly because of Betty’s threats. She threatened to denounce him to human right activists and to the police for beating her. As an Iranian, he knew he would never stand a chance to fight back.

The funny thing is that Moody actually disliked living in Iran after no more than 6 month from their arrival and dreamt of being the successful doctor he once was in the US and always bragged about it, then at times complained of Iranian life and seeked for a solution to return to the US to practice again.

That is simply said the plain truth about Not without my daughter.

Both parents are equally at fault, Betty was selfish and a hypocrite, planning to leave Moody since 83 and take THEIR daughter along. Moody was arrogant, egomaniac, and a coward who chose the easy path, by staying in Iran, rather than fight back.
But in no way was THE ISLAMIC IDEOLOGY influencing his decisions (to live in Iran for instance) because he never was, nor became, a practicing Muslim anyways.

PS: The book is somehow racist, if you read it again, you’ll realize the description and degradation of a whole race and country.
Then again, had I been imprisoned in Turkey and treated like Billy Hayes (in his MIDNIGHT EXPRESS story) I’d loath Turks forever, their children and their land and religion.