Five Iranian women, all human rights activists, write of life behind bars.

JANUARY 9, 2024

Evin. Iranian dissidents call this prison the “University of Evin” in reference to the many intellectuals, writers, actors, filmmakers, students, union organizers, lawyers and political activists who have served time there over the past 50-some years. Located in northern Tehran, Evin has come to represent the decades-long struggle for democracy led by Iranians of all backgrounds.

These letters, most of which were sent from Evin, were published via a circuitous route, and in spite of the risks involved. Originally printed in the French newspaper Le Monde, they are a testament to the unprecedented scope and continuity of the uprising that quickly adopted the slogan “Woman, life, freedom.” Even as the movement takes on new forms, at least 500 protesters have been killed and tens of thousands arrested in the regime’s crackdown. Many of them are still behind bars.

All throughout its territory, the Islamic Republic continues to arrest political activists and the relatives of its victims in an attempt to prevent a new wave of demonstrations. The economic situation in Iran is extremely dire, with inflation rates at nearly 60 percent, a record for the country. The regime appears unwilling to make concessions on individual liberties, not least of which the compulsory hijab, adding to the general sense of despair and outrage among the population. In this highly volatile environment, the possibility of another anti-government uprising cannot be discounted.

While the Iranian opposition abroad is divided and lacks a clear political project, these women’s letters offer a message of hope; they demonstrate that the path toward a democratic Iran will be traced not from outside the country, but from within its borders.

Zeinab Jalalian

Incarcerated since 2008, this 41-year-old Kurdish feminist activist is the longest-held prisoner in Iran and the sole person to be sentenced to life for the crime of waging war against God. Despite repeated torture, she refuses to be coerced into making false confessions.

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I am a Kurdish woman, witness to numerous crimes in the prisons of the Islamic Republic during my 16 years of incarceration. I have witnessed humiliations, false accusations, insults, torture—and, worst of all, the executions of my fellow prisoners. Is there any pain greater than this? And yet, my torturers ask me to repent. After so many injustices have been committed right before my eyes, I am the one who must beg forgiveness?

I was arrested in February 2008, in Kermanshah. More than two months after my arrest, my family still had not been informed of my detention conditions, let alone of where I was being held. I spent three months in solitary confinement at a secret detention facility called the Kermanshah Intelligence Center, in the middle of an oil field. During this time, I was subjected to physical and psychological torture, and was even threatened with rape.

My torturers destroyed my clothing, bound my hands and feet, and chained me to a metal bed, blindfolded, to interrogate me. They repeatedly whipped the soles of my feet with a cable, to the point where I lost consciousness. During one of these torture sessions, I lost all feeling in and control of my body. My head was slammed violently against the wall; I had a skull fracture and black eyes from the impact. I was handcuffed and dragged in every direction, and I still have the scars.

Nine months after my arrest, in December 2008, I was tried in a few minutes at most and sentenced to death for the crime of “waging war against God.” Denied the right to a lawyer, I had no opportunity to present my defense in court.

In February 2010, after the trial and the sentencing, I was transferred from Kermanshah to Ward 209 of Evin prison, run by the Ministry of Intelligence, for the execution of the death penalty. I was subjected to more interrogations and coercion in an attempt to make me confess to crimes I had not committed. After five months of torture and daily threats of execution, I was sent back to Kermanshah.

From 2014 to 2020, I was transferred to a number of other prisons: in 2014, to Khoy prison, then on April 13, 2020, to Qarchak; on July 5 of the same year, to Kerman, and on the following October 3, to Dizel Abad prison in Kermanshah. Finally, in November 2020, I was sent to Yazd prison. These prisons are all hundreds of kilometers from my family and the city where I live.

Sometimes, I ask myself what spacetime I am trapped in, unable to escape… Why must I witness the annihilation of so many fellow human beings and loved ones? How can we continue to stand by and witness such injustices in silence?

The wars, torture, executions and massacres continue, and the oppressors always find justification for their crimes. It is agonizing, but such is our lot. Despite all this, I have never wished for the death of my oppressors. I want us to fight together to banish them from our country, so that we won’t have to be ashamed before future generations.

Since my incarceration, I have seen hundreds of others arrested and jailed during the various protests. Among others, there was the “Green” movement in 2009, and now the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement since 2022. The Islamic regime used repression and bullets to quell the popular uprising; it discredited dissidents as rioters and enemies of the State. My heart is with all of you who have taken to the streets over the years, you who have been arrested and tortured, who have lost loved ones.

I have spent more than 16 years in prison for having demanded freedom, justice and equality. My greatest pain lies not in this confinement, but in the loss of all those dear to us who have fallen for freedom, and whose voices we will never hear again. Those who did not back down in the face of this murderous regime and who proudly sacrificed their lives in the struggle for freedom. For as long as I live, I will do my best to defend their martyr.

From behind these walls, I await the day when I will walk toward you, arms full of flowers, and kneel humbly before you, offering a bouquet of jasmine to your generous hearts.

I will stand firm until our victory, and I will always be on the side of the oppressed and those who fight against oppression and tyranny.

Zeinab Jalalian is a Kurdish feminist activist who advocates for the rights of ethnic minorities and the end of gender segregation in Iran. She wrote this letter in June from Yazd prison in central Iran.

Narges Mohammadi

In May 2016, this 54-year-old journalist and advocate for the end of death penalty in Iran was sentenced to 16 years in prison for her human rights activism. In August, she was handed a new sentence, adding to the length of her jail time. She was also given 154 lashes for having written to the Secretary-General of the United Nations.

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With this letter, I hope to give a face to all the human beings around the world who are held prisoner, whether behind iron walls or the walls of oppression, and who work against all odds to bring down these “walls:” of ignorance, exploitation, poverty, austerity and isolation.

Do you hear the distant sound of the cracking of Iran’s wall of fear? Soon, we will hear it brought down by the implacable will, strength and unrelenting determination of the Iranian people.

Like millions of other Iranian women, I have always had to live under the burden of a patriarchal culture, a religious and authoritarian power that subjects us to cruel, discriminatory and oppressive laws, imposing all manner of restrictions on every aspect of our lives.

Our childhood was not exempt from this cultural imprisonment. ‘They’ robbed us of our youth and, quite frankly, of our existence. It is the sad truth that, in the end, the authoritarian, misogynistic and fundamentalist government of the Islamic Republic has stolen our lives from us.

But whether we are behind the iron walls of Evin, or outside, we have not sat by and allowed it. As women, sometimes alone and without support, often caught in a maelstrom of accusation and humiliation, we broke off our chains, one by one, until the revolutionary “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement emerged. And we showed our strength to the entire world.

In high school, I studied mathematics and physics, and at university I focused on applied physics. I earned my degree as a consulting engineer, but because of my commitment to standing up for human rights, my training and career goals came up against a wall of obstruction. I worked as a journalist, but after the mass closure of independent media outlets on the order of the Supreme Leader, our newspapers and magazines were censored, and our freedom of expression denied.

I became a spokesperson for the Defenders of Human Rights Center, participating in the growth of a broad community of associations in Iran and working to give shape to a genuine, robust and organized civil society. Unfortunately, these organizations were shut down by the authorities following repeated attacks by security forces, under the command of the Ministry of Intelligence and the Revolutionary Guards Corps. I protested and fought against destructive and repressive policies, alongside thousands of demonstrators and opponents of the regime who also faced imprisonment, solitary confinement and torture.

Finally, I became a mother, but like hundreds of thousands of mothers who suffer in separation from their children, I have long been kept from mine by the barriers of emigration and forced exile. I have no words to describe this experience of motherhood from behind the walls of cruelty and violence.

Despite our imprisonment, we have never stopped fighting. We have become mothers and fathers to all; we have stayed true to our values, to our enthusiasm, our love, our strength and our vitality. We have recreated real life inside these walls.

Even in the face of all these obstacles, we managed to demonstrate the power of protest and the force of dissent. Our momentum has lifted us higher than the walls that oppress us; we are stronger than them, and more solid. If our prison bars represent immobility, silence and death, we are movement, echo and vitality, and this is where the promise of our victory lies.

The government of the Islamic Republic denies us fundamental rights such as the right to life and the freedoms of thought, expression and religious belief, but also the right to dance, to make music and even to love. If you take a close look at Iranian society, you will see that each individual, at every moment of her life and wherever she goes, is guilty of the desire to live. For this crime, she faces the most severe sanctions, punishments, humiliations and arrests; she risks being imprisoned, even executed, for it.

Each of us, then, has become an opponent of the regime. The world has witnessed the repeated cycles of protest in Iran and the creativity of those involved in the broader social movement, people who invent new ways of mobilizing every day.

This movement sparked a transition that is weakening the Islamic Republic more and more with each passing day, leading us straight toward democracy, equality and freedom. The role of free media, of civil society and of human rights’ organizations around the world is crucial in this struggle.

Dear reader: the publication of this letter is proof that our voices were powerful enough to reach you. So, be our voice; share our message of hope, tell the world that we are not behind these walls for nothing and that we are stronger than our torturers, who continue to use every possible means to silence our people. This voice will echo throughout the world. It is the promise of this future that drives us and fills us with joy. Together, we will triumph. Let us hope that day will come very soon.

Narges Mohammadi is Vice President of the Defenders of Human Rights Center association, founded by Nobel Peace Prize-winning lawyer Shirin Ebadi. She wrote this letter in June from Evin prison in northern Tehran.

Sepideh Gholian

A feminist activist and ecologist, the journalist Sepideh Gholian was sentenced in 2018 for having covered the workers’ strikes at the sugar refinery in Haft-Tappeh. In 2019, shortly after her release, the 28-year-old woman was rearrested and sentenced to five years in prison for collusion against national security.

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My message will reach you from behind the walls of Evin prison. A building more than 50 years old that is, paradoxically, a symbol of both torture and repression and of the hope to gain freedom and justice for our country, Iran. The day will come when, in a free Iran, the name of Evin will remind us not only of the darkest days in our history, but also of the inalienable value of freedom.

I was held for a time in Ward 209 of Evin, alongside Cécile Kohler, a French teachers’ union activist. Cécile is a courageous woman, imprisoned for simply having expressed her feelings of friendship with Iranian union organizers. Her jailers prohibited her from seeing her family or her partner, and even from talking with other prisoners. During one of our conversations, she was overcome by immense sadness. And so, to comfort one another, we embraced. Her greatest regret was over the false confessions that were extorted from her and broadcast on Iranian television; she confided in me that she wanted to apologize to the Iranian people. She had not known the extent of the horrors of the Islamic Republic. On that day, they transferred her to another location. Someplace where she would not be allowed even to weep.

Evin is not the only prison where Iranian dissidents are held. There are dozens of others that house prisoners of conscience by the thousands. The oppressive regime and the Iranian people both know that democracy will win out in the end, given the scale and reach of the protests that have erupted from within the country. The Iranian tyrants’ true nightmare is the Iranian people themselves. The labor movement is a beacon of the broader social movement in Iran, but it also faces the most severe repression of any movement. Over the past few years, despite all the obstructions and the banning of unions, Iranian workers have managed to organize hundreds of popular strikes in all different sectors.

The “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement was a powerful moment of mobilization, built on the foundation of previous struggles, which demonstrated the shared will of the Iranian people to overthrow the current regime. This movement should not be viewed as a passing phenomenon. Labor movements, uprisings and protests to demand our rights should be neither dangerous nor forbidden; they constitute a fundamental human right. The convergence of these two movements brought entire sections of the Iranian population to the streets.

The labor movement is among the most progressive in the country. The marked presence of women in its ranks, especially in recent years, the near-explicit solidarity with the LGBTQI + community, the support for the rights of ethnic minorities and the actions of teachers’ unions all demonstrate that this movement is aware of the intersectionality of struggles and encourages the participation of people from all classes and social backgrounds.

I join my fellow prisoners in sending you our warm greetings from Evin. I hope that our shared struggle against tyrannical regimes around the world, and particularly in Iran, will soon bring about major changes for the benefit of all. As a woman who has seen a large part of her life consumed by prison, exile and torture, all for no more than having demanded justice, I can tell you that hope is my most precious possession. Let us keep it always in our hearts… Hope for the victory of the Iranian people.

Sepideh Gholian is a journalist, feminist activist and ecologist. She wrote this letter in June from Evin prison.

Niloufar Bayani

In 2020, this 37-year-old environmental activist and researcher was sentenced to 10 years in prison for spying; at the time, she was employed with a United Nations program promoting environmental conservation.

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Past midnight, they forced him to sing and dance to a popular song. How many of them had surrounded him? Between five and ten interrogators—we will never know—closed in around him, clapping, berating him and forcing him to perform this terrible dance, in a sordid interrogation room. He must have been blindfolded, like his colleague who was being held in the next room; they wanted him to suffer all the more from hearing his friend undergo the same torture. His colleague survived; he did not. That was the last time we had any news of him. A few days earlier, he had been arrested in front of a police precinct and dragged inside with a plastic bag over his head.

He was seen for the last time when his lifeless body was shown to his wife, at the morgue, only two weeks after his arrest. To this day, the cause of his death remains unclear. Kavous Seyed-Emami gave everything, including his life, to environmental conservation, which was his greatest passion. A professor of political sociology, he inspired a great many people, at every stage of his life, to become environmental activists. This was my case. I discovered my vocation as a biologist specializing in environmental protection.

Now, I am an environmental activist who has been incarcerated for five and a half years in Evin prison, in Tehran. I have another four years left to serve. Through this letter, I wish to denounce the tragic death on February 18, 2018 of Kavous Seyed-Emami, director of the conservationist NGO Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation, where I worked. I wish to denounce the psychological torture, beatings and sexual harassment inflicted on my seven other wrongly accused colleagues: Taher Ghadirian, Houman Jowkar, Sepideh Kashani, Amir-Hossein Khaleghi, Abdolreza Kouhpayeh, Sam Rajabi and Morad Tahbaz. I also denounce the abuse I myself have faced.

And, finally, I denounce the brutal and inhuman treatment of our local volunteers from impoverished villages in southern Iran: Hassan Ragh, Arat Zareh and Mohammad Saleh-Ahmad. I witnessed the degrading treatment of the wildlife photographers and documentary filmmakers Alireza Farhad-Zadeh and Morteza Arianejad, who were held in solitary confinement at the same time as myself and a number of our colleagues. Together, we were sentenced to a total of 68 years in prison and $1 million in fines, on the basis of a ludicrous charge of “collaboration with an enemy State” (read: the United States of America).

Four of us spent two years, between our arrest and the verdict, living in fear of being sentenced to death. No evidence was ever brought against us. No investigation was deemed necessary, and a sham trial was held to criminalize our environmental movement. This modest but growing movement within Iranian civil society was presented as a threat to national security. At least forty other people were arrested and detained in a concerted attempt to silence environmental activists, to discourage participants in the movement and delegitimize their cause.

At the time of my arrest, I wasn’t yet familiar with the term “environmental activist.” Now, I know that the grim fate of the coming years will reach well beyond our species and our country. We are in the middle of the sixth mass extinction of species in the history of our planet, and we are facing increasingly severe climate change impacts; both of these crises have been caused by human activity. And yet, around the world, environmental experts, researchers, volunteers, activists, witnesses and protesters who fight against the destruction of the natural world are persecuted, intimidated, assassinated or simply disappeared.

According to Global Witness, the years between 2012 and 2021 saw the murder of at least 1,733 advocates for the protection of the environment and the planet. In 2018, the environmental activist Sharif Bajour and three of his colleagues died under suspicious circumstances while they were working to stop the spread of forest fires in Iran’s Kurdistan province. Bajour, who was a member of the NGO Chia Green, had already been arrested three times. In the same year, Farshid Hakki, a university professor and environmental activist, was found dead inside his burned-out car west of Tehran. According to Amnesty International, at least 63 environmental activists were arrested in Iran in 2018 alone.

Constantly targeted by threats, many environmental experts have found themselves with little choice but to leave the country. Kaveh Madani is the most well-known example. He had left his prestigious position at Imperial College London for a post in the Iranian government’s Department of Environment. His efforts to promote environmental protection in Iran were blocked and, under the pressure of censorship and intimidation, he left the country only a few months later.

The repression of environmental conservationists continues unabated throughout Iran. Official reports give the following numbers: 10 people arrested in 2014 in Kurdistan; numerous others in 2021, while protesting the policies leading to the drying up of the Zayanderud River in Isfahan; 22 demonstrators jailed in 2022 for speaking out against the unsustainable plan for water transfer to Charmahal and Bakhtiari. And all of these activists had protested peacefully, using folk songs and dances.

These are only a few examples, but a fraction of this reality. The climate emergency and the deterioration of biodiversity are threatening people's right of access to fundamental resources: water, land, air. Not to speak of the rights of all the other living beings without which human life would be impossible. To struggle for environmental protection is neither a luxury, nor a choice, but a necessity.

At this crucial moment, I urge all those who care about human rights to take action for the environment and the people who risk everything, their lives included, to protect it.

Niloufar Bayani is a biologist specializing in environmental protection. She wrote this letter in June from Evin prison.

Golrokh Iraee

After an initial six-year sentence on charges of blasphemy and spreading anti-State propaganda, this 43-year-old Iranian writer was re-incarcerated during the first weeks of protest that followed the death of activist Mahsa Amini in September 2022.

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The most painful reality for our country in 2022 was the violent repression of the street protests, followed by the execution of several of our citizens. Beyond doubt, the street is the only possible path to revolution, to the end of dictatorship and authoritarian rule.

There were several reasons for the movement’s loss of momentum: the absence of a cohesive project among the different alternative political groups, a general lack of structure within these same groups, and, in some cases, the presence of incompetent leaders who were disconnected from the reality of Iranian society. Even if the movement failed to see its demands met, we successfully delegitimized the regime—which had, of course, already been discredited long before.

September 2022 was a turning point in Iran’s history. I witnessed the first days of the demonstrations; the rest was reported back to me. For a time, I was held in Qarchak prison, alongside many of the jailed demonstrators. Their profiles were incredibly diverse; they came from all social classes, bringing different and sometimes contradictory perspectives and political analyses to the table. And yet, they were unanimous in their rejection of the Islamic Republic. They agreed on bold, straightforward slogans and watchwords. They demonstrated a truly heightened social consciousness, which made this the most important movement since the end of the 1990s.

These demonstrations led to a weakening of the popular religious forces that have long backed the government. The regime was confronted with a new generation of protesters, and societal taboos were broken. Young adults and children were taking to the streets in vast numbers, and these protestors repeatedly clashed with security forces. The system was more disoriented than ever by this new face of dissent.

In the absence of real political solutions, these demonstrators, who had brought down the wall of fear through their action in the streets, found themselves powerless once they were behind bars. Meanwhile, the government has attempted to restore its image by issuing propagandistic pardons in a false show of compassion.

Although the security forces were clearly failing to keep control of the streets, the movement’s lack of political structure led to a decline in the demonstrations, which gradually turned into calls to honor the victims’ memory.

The regime has long prevented the formation of opposition political parties, suppressed citizen-run organizations, and paralyzed the country’s institutions. This explains, in part, the difficulty alternative political groups have had in leading the fight effectively, and even in developing a clear analysis of the situation. International media outlets gradually adopted the language of slogans repeated by the movement’s emerging figures, who were often inexperienced – and, in some cases, opportunistic – with no real knowledge of our political reality. These were incompetent leaders who showed up for the demonstrations and then quickly disappeared.

There is no disputing it: a major step forward has been taken and the regime has definitively lost all legitimacy. And yet, the power structure remains intact, and, despite this period of particularly egregious cruelty, the Islamic Republic’s international position is even stronger than before.

In spite of the rampant killing of demonstrators and the many executions that have been denounced by citizens, as well as by numerous lawyers, the international community continues to engage with this regime in negotiations and agreements, and as a partner in regional and international cooperation. This is particularly evident in ongoing financial exchanges and the nomination of representatives of the Islamic Republic to the United Nations Human Rights Council Social Forum.

None of the above things should have happened. The message sent by the international community to Iranian demonstrators is that they are alone in their struggle. And yet, massive mobilization in the streets is the only path to victory and revolution, to the end of tyranny and despotism.

At a time of major upheaval in regional and global power balances, in a Middle East plagued by instability, fascism and despotism, persuading people to maintain the status quo, to leave the streets and passively wait for the collapse of the regime – which will, however, only be possible through widespread and coordinated protest action – is an unforgivable betrayal. This shameful implicit support for the regime, whatever the intentions behind it, plays into the hands of the repressive security forces.

Victory is possible, and the way to achieve it is becoming clear: by recognizing our weaknesses and nourishing our strengths, by rejecting false leaders and resisting any hegemonic line of thought that aims to dominate our spirit; by believing in our ability to reach our goals using the tools, organizations and political groups we have made our own, and that represent our collective will.

Whatever lies ahead, let it be known: we are more determined than ever to topple the structures of our oppression.

Golrokh Iraee is a writer and activist fighting for an end to stoning in Iran. She wrote this letter in June from Evin prison.

These letters were originally published in French in Le Monde and translated from Persian by Chirinne Ardakani, Sepideh Farsi, Javad Javaheri, and Reihane Taravati.