Inside Iran

In Iran, with all of its anti-Israel fervor and nuclear muscle flexing, consider this scene: A religious leader, a mullah, greeting a member of parliament with a kiss on each cheek. And what's so striking about this is the member of Parliament is Jewish.

His name is Dr. Ciamak Morsadegh, and he's the de facto leader of an estimated 20,000 or more Jews whose roots in Iran date back more than two thousand years. He's also a surgeon who runs - believe it or not - a Jewish hospital in the heart of Tehran, where most patients are Muslim.

Ann Curry: Many Americans are surprised to know that there's a Jewish community in Iran.  And once they discover this, they will want to know what is the level of discrimination against Jews in Iran?

Dr. Ciamak Morsadegh: Iran has the greatest Jewish population in the Asia and Middle East outside of Israel. And I can say that there is no important discrimination between Iranian Jews and Iranian Muslims. 

Still, the vast majority of Jews -- tens of thousands -- have left Iran since the Islamic Revolution, many landing in New York and Los Angeles.

Dr. Ciamak Morsadegh: Of course, being a religious minority in a religious country have some problems.

Problems like the international conference President Ahmadinejad hosted questioning the holocaust.

Dr. Ciamak Morsadegh: Denial of Holocaust is not the official statement of Islamic Republic of Iran government.  I think they are the personal accounts of President Ahmadinejad.

In fact, as the president was making headlines for denying the Holocaust, Iranian state television was showing a 22-part series about the holocaust - and a man known as Iran's Oskar Schindler… one of several diplomats who issued Iranian passports to save Jews fleeing the Nazis.

Ann Curry: Do you know how many Jews were saved?

Dr. Ciamak Morsadegh: There are something about 4,000 to 5,000.

Other images you might not expect to see in Iran: women firefighters, a female racecar driver, and this woman - who embodies one of Iran's more surprisingly tolerant policies. Shahrzad, who's 37 years old, was born a boy. Ten years ago, she had a sex change operation.

Schahrzad Basiri: I have always been like this.This has always been my character. Even before the operation, the first operation, I am the same person. 

Even though being gay is against the law in Iran, it is perfectly legal to be a transsexual, and it was the leader of the Islamic Revolution, the Ayatollah Khomeini, who made it that way. His reasoning: that  surgery is correcting a mistake of nature.

Shahrzad's surgeon, Dr. Shahryar Cohanzad, says he sees about fifty transsexual patients a year, and that the government even helps pay for the surgery.

Dr. Shahryar Cohanzad: In this country there are some governmental subsidies that help this issue to be dealt with

The Iranian government's proactive response to HIV/AIDS is equally surprising. Condoms are readily available in the Islamic republic. And the government provides clean needles to some drug addicts, including prison inmates.

Dr. Minoo Mohraz: Well, this is the infectious disease ward.

A lot of the credit for these policies goes to this woman, Dr. Minoo Mohraz, the foremost authority on AIDS in Iran. She says that the official number of HIV cases in the country is 19,000, but because of underreporting, there could be as many as 100,000. Her power of persuasion led authorities to set up a network of aids clinics and to offer drug treatment to some addicts instead of sending them to jail.

Ann Curry: How could you be so successful?

Dr. Minoo Mohraz: In what?

Ann Curry: In causing this country, this government to act as swiftly as it has?

Dr. Minoo Mohraz: Well, actually, because fortunately Minister of Health. We had people over there who were that were thinking just like me.

But she says iran has a long way to go on aids education, in large part because sex is still a sensitive topic here, especially on television. As we follow Dr. Mohraz on her rounds, it's clear she treats her patients as if they were her own children.

Ann Curry: There's nothing you can do for him.

This man has lost his will to live. 

Ann Curry: He's saying he wants to die.

Dr. Minoo Mohraz: Uh-huh.

Ann Curry: He's given up.

Dr. Minoo Mohraz: He's given up.

But Dr. Mohraz hasn't given up on him and he knows it.

Patient: She is a wonderful-- doctor, wonderful mother, wonderful sister.  She has tried for me all.

Ann Curry: She's tried oh-so-hard to keep you alive.

Dr. Minoo Mohraz: I like you, too, if you listen to me.  Don't worry, okay? 

Her work doesn't stop in the aids ward.  She's also set up an outpatient support program for HIV-positive patients. Where they can take classes and learn new skills.

Dr. Minoo Mohraz: I-- I, you know, I get-- I'm very-- proud of them when they-- I see that-- they are producing something

On the day we visit, this man is putting finishing touches on a musical instrument. When she first met him, she says, he could barely function.  But after getting government-funded retro-viral drugs, he gained strength, and before long was actually performing music.  The doctor was taken aback.

Dr. Minoo Mohraz: And you know that make...He was the first patient who make me cry.

And in return, she has had an equally profound impact on him.  He says he sees her as much more than his doctor.

Patient: My mother.

Ann Curry: She's your mother?

Dr. Mohraz's AIDS work is just one of many medical advances in Iran - the government also funds stem cell research and Iran has one of the best in-vitro fertilization programs in the Middle East. But the question this nation now faces is whether traditional Iran and modern Iran can come to terms with one another. And that's a question at the heart of the upcoming presidential election.

Man: We're just wanting our first-- our first rights, our human rights.

MORE FROM INTERNATIONAL

International Section Front

Billionaire's mysterious death in Monte Carlo Former drug dealer saving kids in Congo What happened to little Madeleine? To catch a baby broker Photos: Children of Jalapa Photos: Inside the Hogar Primavera orphanage Photos: At home with the Galicias Photos: Behind the scenes in Guatemala Missing: Enma Galicia Photos: Together again International Section Front   Add International headlines to your news reader: