He was startled when the doorbell rang at that early hour of the morning. It was our fault. We had arrived an hour earlier than planned. “I didn’t know who they were”, he explained to us when, already away from the house, we called him on the phone. “I didn’t know who he was. I was waiting for them later.”
The restlessness was understandable. On June 9, 2021, the day of our meeting, an Iranian court had already sentenced Narges Mohammadi to prison again. This time, 2 and a half years and 80 lashes. The crime: “Having spread propaganda against the system”. They could arrest her at any moment. This new sentence came only months after he had been released.
“They do it because I continued with my activities; if I had stopped doing it, even if they had legal cases against me, they would not seek to imprison me so quickly”, explained Mohammadi, who confessed that we had taken him out of bed. “I spend most of the nights writing a book about white tortures that I want to finish before I go to prison”, before going on to describe in detail the tortures he refers to: “Imagine that it is in a really small place , a space of 2×2 meters. No color is visible, there is absolute silence… And the pressure of the interrogators. From the cell to the interrogation room”.
And then, as if that were not enough, comes the relationship with the interrogator. “It’s starting to put pressure on you. It gives you wrong news. The mind starts to get confused. Then he threatens you. we will execute you And it puts you under pressure. And you can ask no one for help but him. This is the point where the prisoner is seriously injured. His mind is wounded. He suffers serious psychological damage”, he continues.
These methods lead many people to confess to crimes they did not commit, as he explains in the book that has finally seen the light under the title White Torture. Interviews with imprisoned women (Editorial Alliance). The foreword is by Shirin Ebadi, also the Iranian Nobel laureate.
When we visited, the nights were the only relatively quiet time for this woman who resumed activism as soon as she was released from prison on October 8, 2020. Ten days after being released, she He went to Shiraz to support the family of fighter Navid Afkari, executed months earlier. She then launched a campaign against solitary confinement in prison and, through interviews with Persian media abroad, denounced the abuses women are subjected to in prison.
“Many women are assaulted, sexually harassed and even physically punished…I know some who have been sexually harassed by the interrogators,” explained Mohammadi, who, following Iranian traditions, insisted on making us tea accompanied by a large plate of assorted fruits and cakes.
“Why is it so difficult for many women activists to report this kind of assault?”, we asked her. “First of all, none of the political prisoners feel comfortable talking about these issues. They are worried about their future. They have families and are respected people in society. If they talk about this, they know that the Government will put them under more pressure. They will be sent back to solitary confinement. They will sentence them to prison again,” he explained before referring to the situation in Iran’s lesser-known prisons, where prisoners are held for crimes such as murder, prostitution or drugs.
“In normal prisons, women suffer a lot of sexual harassment. I have seen that in Zanjan prison they can never complain… No one listens to their voice. And basically they are not capable of it, they don’t dare. But I declare in this interview that women are assaulted in the prisons of the Islamic Republic of Iran”, she explained before saying that in that same prison, in the city where she was born in 1971, she had also been assaulted.
It happened in 2019. “Then I complained… of course, but my complaint has not been processed. There were about 24 marks of his hands on my body and the medical examiner made a visual report, but the Islamic Republic of Iran has never investigated the case. That’s why, when they don’t deal with this issue legally, we are forced to start a campaign in the media”. In the living room where he received us, two photographs stood out. One was with her twin children, Kiana and Ali, when they were barely children.
At the time of our meeting, they were 15 years old and I had not seen them for seven years, when after a great struggle they obtained permission to leave the country and join their father, Tagi Rahmani, in exile in Paris . “I have really come to the conclusion that I cannot choose any other life than this; I have to fight, fighting is my whole life. I feel like I’m not a real person if I don’t fight. I can’t be anything else. I have to fight”, he explained.
“Political activity in Iran is dangerous because there are arrests. Many people are sent to prison and even subjected to solitary confinement. And this question is not easy and it is very difficult. This means that someone working in the women’s field or a woman working in any field can lose their job. I lost her,” explained Mohammadi, who studied Physics and Engineering and worked as an engineer inspector until she was fired. “No one would give me a job. Nobody”, he insisted.
“You can also lose your family… I lost mine. Although I have two children and a husband, I have been living alone for many years. Very serious injuries can also be suffered. During this time in prison I had three major surgeries. And it was all because of the pressure I endured”, he continued to explain.
Before ending the meeting, he wanted to explain how he has seen Iran after so many years in prison. “Women want to be freer. They fight harder to be free. They are more aware and this has to do with the connection they have with the world… It means they can use the virtual space more to express their own voice”. The interview took place before thousands of women, led by the youngest, took to the streets in 2022 for the death of Mahsa Jina Amini in the custody of the morality police.
Imprisoned, the day Narges Mohammadi learned that she had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her defense of human rights, she celebrated with her cellmates. Yesterday, while the children collected the award, a new hunger strike began.
