The Struggle for Freedom by Iranian human rights activist Narges Mohammadi an advocate for ‘Women, Life, and Freedom’ from prison currently in Evin Prison in Tehran the Iranian capital city. When protests spread throughout Iran last September after the death of Mahsa Amini, a young, Kurdish Iranian woman arrested and beaten for improperly wearing her headscarf, Narges Mohammadi reported on the regime’s crackdown from a unique vantage point: Iran’s notorious Evin prison. Mohammadi, the Deputy Director of the Center for Human Rights Documentation, wrote a letter describing the sexual abuse of women imprisoned during the demonstrations. Mohammadi returned to prison last April after a brief furlough for heart surgery to resume an eight-year sentence for alleged national security offenses. Narges has been fighting for 31 years against the brutality of Islamic republic of Iran Islamic rulers and has been in and out of prison since her teenage years.
In defiance of the Iranian regime’s strict repression of women’s style of dress and public behavior, demonstrators last September danced and sang, and women discarded their veils. The chants from the crowds for “Women, Life, Freedom” gave the protest movement its name and reflected the role of women in galvanizing opposition to the Islamic authoritarian regime. The Iranian leadership responded with brutal repressive security force. The Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) estimated in January that more than 500 people had been killed and 19,000 arrested. Although many have subsequently been released, others face the death penalty.
Narges Mohammadi is a trained in nuclear physicist, a background she shares with other renowned champions of human rights: the Russians Andrei Sakharov and Boris Nemtsov and Fang Lizhi of China. Her rights work is wide ranging, but Roya Boroumand, Executive Director of the Abdorrahman Boroumand Foundation, stated that it is Mohammadi’s focus on the justice system that she regards as most significant. Mohammadi’s record of activism since last 31 years is not limited to high profile prisoners. Unlike many activists, she pays attention to ordinary prisoners who get caught in the claws of the judiciary.”Rather than let her imprisonment interrupt her work, Mohammadi simply continues it in cells and interrogation rooms. She has interviewed fellow inmates about their experiences of prolonged solitary confinement known in Iran as “white torture.” The interviews are published in a book White Torture: Interviews With Iranian Women Prisoners.
Nigara Afsharzadeh, a young mother and citizen of Turkmenistan endured white torture for 18 months after being imprisoned for espionage when visiting her daughter in Iran.“Time does not pass in the cell. I was all alone,” she told Mohammadi. “The cell door had a narrow hatch that the women officers sometimes opened to look inside. I put my face behind the hatch for hours so that if they opened the door I could look into the corridor. The cell was silent, and there was no sound. I looked all over the cell so that I might find something like an ant, and whenever I could find one, I followed it. I talked to the ant for hours.” This depicts the cold silence of confinement cells.
In White Torture, Mohammadi relates how her own medical “treatment” in prison serves as another form of torture. Bring a chain…and tie her hands and feet to the bed legs,’” a doctor barks when Mohammadi cries during rough treatment. “The doctor, despite the fact that he had sworn an oath to save patients’ lives, began to speak loudly. ‘Ms. Mohammadi. Die, but die out of the prison,’” so that the regime won’t face international condemnation. No one can predict when political change might occur in Iran, but the “Women, Life, Freedom” protests mark a change in Iran.
The current ongoing protest centered around women’s rights and the death in [Iran’s region of] Kurdistan of a woman belonging to a minority group spark a nationwide protest in solidarity” The scope of the protesters’ goals is also significant, They have gone beyond narrow “asks,” such as ending the requirement that women wear the veil, and “challenged the legitimacy of clerical rule” itself. A biggest threat so far in Iran since revolution in 1979.
All parties want the end of the theocracy,” says Reuel Gerecht of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. From the regime’s perspective, the stakes are high. “Women are not intimidated, and this is difficult for the regime to handle,” Gerecht adds, since “the regime likes to present itself as women’s protector. A harsher crackdown has the prospect of bringing out many more men into the streets.” The reluctance to use even more force against women may explain some bizarre poisonings of schoolgirls throughout the country, which can only be traced to the regime.
The protests have also had an impact on the normally divided Iranian diaspora, says April Brady, Communications Director at the Project on Middle East Democracy. She points to the release in March of the Charter of Solidarity and Alliance for Freedom, also called the Mahsa Charter, which calls for international isolation of the Islamic regime and sets forth a blueprint for a secular democratic Iran. The Iranian people across ethnic divide are not just uniting in opposition to the regime, but are building a diverse coalition, comprising activists, actresses, athletes, Kurdish leaders, the son of the former shah, and others to create a shared vision for Iran’s democratic future.”
As Mohammadi prepared to return to prison last year, she taped a short video message. It’s remarkable for its incongruities – her composure in the face of persecution, the contrast between the pleasant apartment which she is leaving for conditions she knows – and we know, thanks to her – will test but not break her. “I am heading towards prison today, at 5 p.m., like many times before,” she says. Behind her are photographs of her two twin children, who live abroad with her husband Taghi Rahmani, a journalist and activist, who himself spent 14 years in prison. She was so full of hope, and free from any worries or frustration,” she began, in a relaxed, and upbeat tone. She appeared as if she was about to go to work – which, of course, she was.
“I think my fellow countrymen and women are more aware and willing to achieve democracy after 100 years of struggle…. Of course, we are being suppressed by the [Islamic Republic of Iran]. But we believe that this is a sign of my people’s power and resilience and the weakness of the oppressors. I will return to prison to continue the fight.”
Currently jailed in Evin Prison, in Tehran Mohammadi, a writer and human rights defender, has been subjected to prolonged solitary confinement and intense psychological torture.
Fighting for change has cost Narges Mohammadi her career, separated her from family and deprived her of liberty. But a jail cell has not succeeded in silencing her. When Narges Mohammadi was just a little girl, her mother told her to never become political. The price of fighting the system in a country like Iran would be too high. Her current imprisonment is hardly her first encounter with Iran’s harsh approach to dissent.
Over the past 30 years, Iran’s government has penalized her over and over for her activism and her writing, depriving her of most of what she holds dear — her career as an engineer, her health, time with her parents, husband and children, and her liberty. The last time Ms. Mohammadi heard the voices of her 16-year-old twins, Ali and Kiana, was over a year ago. The last time she held her son and daughter in her arms was eight years ago. Her husband, Taghi Rahmani, 63, also a writer and prominent activist who was jailed for 14 years in Iran, lives in exile in France with the twins. The suffering and loss she has endured have not dimmed her determination to keep pushing for change.
A small window in her cell in the women’s ward of Evin opens to a view of the mountains surrounding the prison in north Tehran. Ms. Mohammadi said in a rare and unauthorized telephone interview from inside Evin in April. “The more they punish me, the more they take away from me, the more determined I become to fight until we achieve democracy and freedom and nothing less.” Last month, the prison authorities revoked Ms. Mohammadi’s telephone and visitation rights because of statements she had issued from prison condemning Iran’s human rights violations, which were posted on her Instagram page. PEN America awarded Ms. Mohammadi the Barbey Freedom to Write Award at its annual gala in New York last month. The United Nations named her one of the three recipients of its World Press Freedom Prize this year.
Narges Mohammadi has been an indomitable voice against Iranian government repression even while being among its most persecuted targets,” said Kenneth Roth, the executive director of Human Rights Watch from 1993 to 2022. “She has been unyielding despite repeated imprisonment, continuing her reporting on government abuse even from her prison cell. Her persistence and remarkable courage are a source of inspiration worldwide.”
Ms. Mohammadi grew up in the central city of Zanjan in a middle-class family. Her father was a cook and a farmer. Her mother’s family was political, and after the Islamic revolution in 1979 toppled the monarchy, an activist uncle and two cousins were arrested. Two childhood memories, narges said, set her on the path to activism: Her mother stuffing a red plastic shopping basket with fruit every week for prison visits with her brother, and her mother sitting on the floor near the television screen to hear the names of prisoners executed each day. One afternoon, the newscaster announced her nephew’s name. These memories left a lasting mark on the 9-year-old girl narges and she became a driving force for her lifelong opposition to executions and a path of political activism against Iranian repressive rulers. In college, she met her husband, a well-known figure in Iran’s intellectual circles, when she attended an underground class he taught on civil society. When he proposed, her parents told her a political marriage was destined for doom. Mr. Rahmani spent their first wedding anniversary in solitary confinement. Since September of last year, the couple’s activism has taken on more urgency. An uprising erupted across Iran, led by women and girls, demanding an end to the Islamic Republic. It was set off by the death of a young woman, Mahsa Amini, in the custody of the morality police for allegations of violating Iran’s hijab rules.
Even from detention, Ms. Mohammadi was encouraging civil disobedience, condemning the government’s violent crackdown on protesters, including executions, and demanding world leaders pay attention to Iranians’ struggle for freedom. Her decades-long efforts have helped raise a grassroots awareness in Iran of these issues. For Iran to transform into a democracy, she says, change must come from within the country through the development of a robust civil society. Like many activists inside the prison, Narges kept her self consumed by finding a way to support the movement,” she said in the written part of the interview. “We the people of Iran are transitioning out of the Islamic Republic’s theocracy. Transition won’t be jumping from one point to the next. It will be a long and hard process but the evidence suggests it will definitely happen.”
Ms. Mohammadi has always treated prison as a platform for activism A rare symbol of positive political activism in the world and a reminder for Sikh community who too being a minority in a majoritarian state yearning for their rights. Her friends and colleagues say Ms. Mohammadi’s most remarkable trait is her refusal to be a victim. A trained singer in Persian classical music, she organizes gatherings in the ward where she sings, plays rhythmic tombak on a pot and dances with the other women. In March at Nowruz, the Persian new year, she led a group singing a Persian rendition of the Italian protest song, “Bella Ciao.” “When prison drags on for many years, you have to give your life meaning within confinement and keep love alive,” Ms. Mohammadi said. “I have to keep my eyes on the horizon and the future even though the prison walls are tall and near and blocking my view.”
