Ali, who is sixteen years old, remembers the last time he saw his mom at home very clearly. She cooked eggs for him and his twin sister, Kiana, for breakfast. She told them to work hard in school, said goodbye, and sent them off to school. When they came back, she was not there. There were a total of 8 people.
Their mother is named Narges Mohammadi, who is well known for fighting for human rights in Iran. Unfortunately, this fight has taken a toll on her life.
Mohammadi has been locked up for most of the last twenty years. She has been punished many times for speaking up for those who cannot speak, for her constant fight against the death penalty and being locked up alone – which she has had to go through for weeks.
She is currently in jail for 10 years and 9 months, charged with doing things that harmed the country’s safety and spreading negative information about the government. She was also given a punishment of 154 lashes, which rights groups think has not been carried out yet. She also received restrictions on traveling and other activities.
But her strong voice has not been silenced even in the worst parts of Evin Prison in Tehran.
In a recording, Mohammadi can be heard leading chants of “woman, life, freedom” inside Evin prison. These chants were started last year after the death of Mahsa Jhina Amini while she was in custody of the morality police. She was taken into custody because it was believed that she was not wearing her headscarf correctly.
The recording is stopped by a short automatic message that says, “This is a call from Evin Prison. ” In the background, women can be heard singing a Farsi version of “Bella Ciao,” which is an old Italian song that people used to resist against Fascists. It has now been adopted by Iran’s freedom movement.
Mohammadi said to CNN that this period was a time of strong protest in the prison and it continues to be that way. He provided his responses in written form through intermediaries.
After Amini’s death, the Iranian government stopped the protests and the police continued checking if women were wearing headscarves in July. This week, Iranian activists claimed that some people attacked a teenage girl in a Tehran metro station because she was not wearing a headscarf. As a result, she was badly hurt and had to be taken to the hospital. Iranian authorities stated that the reason for the incident was low blood pressure.
Mohammadi is very aware of the consequences of speaking out in public. In August, she got one more year in jail for continuing to be active in prison after she talked to the media and spoke about sexual assaults that happen in jail.
She was already in prison for releasing a book last year about harsh prison methods in Iran, called “White Torture: Interviews with Iranian Women Prisoners,” and a film documenting the experiences of prisoners in isolation, which she herself has also experienced.
But she continues forward without losing confidence or being discouraged. Mohammadi wrote a long letter to CNN, where she strongly criticized the mandatory hijab and accused the Islamic Republic of being hypocritical by using sexual violence against female prisoners.
When the religious government took over four decades ago, they used the compulsory hijab to show their power and control over women as a way to control society.
“Her letter says that they couldn’t make half of the population, which is men, wear abayas and turbans in society. ” But they made it compulsory for many people in Iran to wear the hijab, veil, chador, manteau, and dark-colored trousers in order to show the negative side of the religious system to the world.
Think about Iranian women who have been made to wear head coverings, long coats, and dark pants in really hot weather for 44 years. And in certain areas, they even have to wear black chadors.
They have been feeling really bad because they have to wear hijab all the time. This is because Islamic men want to look good and protect women. Now, these women are going through unwanted sexual touching and mistreatment towards themselves.
Mohammadi wrote a letter to CNN and talked about incidents of sexual violence that happened to her and other female prisoners. These incidents occurred at different places starting from 1999.
She claims that security forces, prison staff, and medical workers attacked political prisoners and women who were held for committing crimes.
Mohammadi says that there has been a big increase in sexual violence against women who are imprisoned since the protests in Iran last year. She says that the abuse is now happening regularly and is part of a system.
Mohammadi says that the victims shared their stories with the officials who visited Qarchak prison for inspection. In jail, I listened to three women who were protesting and told me they were sexually attacked. One of them was a popular activist from the student movement. When she got put in prison, she complained to the authorities that when she was arrested on the street, her hand and leg got handcuffed and tied to two rings on the car door. And in that situation, someone touched her inappropriately without her consent.
Mohammadi says that she and another prisoner went to the prison’s “quarantine” section by pretending to bring food to another prisoner. They saw a young woman there who had bruises on her stomach, arms, legs, and thighs.
The Iranian government says that the accusations of sexual assaults against detainees, including a detailed investigation by CNN last year, are not true and have no evidence.
Mohammadi has been speaking out against sexual violence against prisoners for a long time, challenging norms in her traditional country. In 2021, she used an app called Clubhouse to have a talk with other women. They talked about how they were attacked by people working for the government from the 1980s until now, and Mohammadi was one of those women. She got in trouble for this, as Mohammadi and organizations that protect rights say.
Women who are subjected to sexual harassment feel angry, scared, and insecure. However, if their identity as women is suppressed by ideological or religious beliefs, they not only experience anger and fear, but also feel deceived and manipulated by the government, which is even more distressing. Sexual abuse causes very deep emotional and mental pain that is hard to overcome, and it’s possible that some people may never fully recover from it.
Mohammadi has not been allowed to talk to her husband and children for 18 months because she refused to stay silent while in prison.
My wife is in prison, and I am very worried every day that I might hear something bad happened to her, said Taghi Rahmani, in an interview with CNN in France, where he has been living with their children since Mohammadi was imprisoned in 2015.
Rahmani and organizations that protect human rights are worried about Mohammadi’s health and her ability to get medical help. This is because she had a heart attack and had an operation last year.
He happily displays important awards he has received on her behalf. He said that she has a lot of energy and passion for freedom and human rights.
Rahmani, who was once a political prisoner for 14 years, met Mohammadi in 1995 when she came to his secret history classes.
For the past eight years, he has had to take on the role of both a dad and a mom for their twins, who are now teenagers.
Kiana always said that when mom is around, dad is not. “It’s bad,” he said. “But if someone decides on a course of action, they have to face all the difficulties that come with it. ”
Ali, similar to his father, is determined and says that his mother needs to continue moving forward “for Iran and for our future. ”
“I feel very happy and proud of my mother,” Ali said to CNN. “She wasn’t always around us, but whenever she was, she took care of us well. She was a good mom and still is. I have gotten used to this kind of life now. ” “I don’t care about any pain or hardship that I have to go through. ”
Kiana doesn’t want to talk to CNN and she wants her mom with her. Her dad says that Kiana thinks that if you have a child, you should take care of them and raise them.
Mohammadi feels the sadness of being away from her family every day. She chose to give up something valuable because she dreamed of being free in the future.
“I once told Ali and Kiana goodbye, and it felt similar to the time I nearly died in the tree-filled yard of Evin,” she tells CNN, but doesn’t mention exactly when that happened. I collected the dandelions from Evin’s yard. She stood without shoes on the hot pavement on July 14,” she said, talking about the day – just a few weeks after their last breakfast – when she said goodbye to her children in jail before they went to live in France. My feet felt like they were very hot, but my heart felt very passionate and excited. I released the dandelions into the air, and I saw my children’s hands, feet, and young faces. Tears streamed down my face, like rain in the springtime.
When I think about how I treated my family, it makes me feel like I was a complete stranger to my daughter and son. I wasn’t there for them during the most important parts of their lives, and I can never get that time back. But I believe that living in a world without freedom, equality, and peace is not worth it, and it’s not even worth observing.
She says she has decided not to see or hear her children, so she can speak up for oppressed people, especially women and children, from her country.