MANNAM peace news : Run for Peace(1)

He's been running all his life, running for freedom, running for peace.

It started when he ran away from home at the age of eight. 
Later he ran away from his homeland, Iran, and spent seven years on a bicycle, pedaling 49,700 miles across 55 countries.

In 2002, he reached America. 
He now lives in a tent in Death Valley.
It's been nearly 10 years since Reza Baluchi escaped from Iran. 
He has run across the United States twice and around its perimeter once. 
He sets out on every journey with the same mission: to spread a message of world peace.

Baluchi plans to begin his next extended run in Israel and finish atop the highest peak on earth -- Mount Everest. 
His route will take him through the Middle East, including Iran. 
He'd be going home for the first time since escaping on his bike.

"I got tired of having no freedom," he said. 
"I would wear a t-shirt and they would stop me. I'd grow out my hair and they'd make me cut it. I traveled out of the country with the cycling team and never came back."

Baluchi grew up in the northern Iranian city of Rasht, the youngest of eight children including a brother permanently traumatized by his service in the Iran-Iraq war. 
His family barely made a living from their rice farm. 
He would run seven miles to school, and back home, every day.

Baluchi ran away from home after upsetting his mother and getting a beating. He fled on foot, running more than 300 miles to Isfahan where he stayed with his aunt and uncle and continued his schooling. 
Despite his young age, Baluchi helped support that family by working as a mechanic, running another 14 miles to work after class each day.

His athletic abilities didn't go unnoticed; he was recruited to join the national cycling team at 14. 
Baluchi cycled and won numerous competitions through his teen years.

He also fell away from Islam, the state-sponsored religion of Iran. 
He says he was a peaceful activist -- and got in trouble for associating with dissidents. 
At 19, he was arrested by a government militia known as the Basij for eating during Ramadan, the holy month when Muslims are expected to fast. 
Baluchi was wearing a Michael Jackson t-shirt and carrying "banned pre-revolutionary videotape" -- a romantic movie.

He says he spent the next 45 days imprisoned in a torture cell.
"Every day they tortured me," Baluchi said. 
"They broke my shoulder; I cried. 
They would hit me with a baton and burn me with skewers."

He says he was frequently beaten unconscious and, on some occasions, hung from a tree by his wrists.
"My hands had turned completely black from the dead blood; I thought I would have to cut them off. Every day I prayed that I die. Every day I would cry. I thought it would be better if they just killed me so I wouldn't have to suffer."
After questioning his family and investigating his intentions, Baluchi says the Basij deemed him essentially harmless. 
He was removed from the torture cell, and spent the next 18 months jailed under less threatening conditions.