Iran’s Qarchak jail has been called many things: a torture chamber; the worst women’s prison in the world; unfit for humans. Nasrin Sotoudeh uses just one word to describe the nine months she spent there: “Hell.”
Sotoudeh does not speak of the appalling conditions or stench of sewage, the undrinkable water or lack of food, the disease or cruelty of solitary confinement. She simply says: “I am ready to return whenever they say.”