Narges Mohammadi, the most articulate and unflinching voice of the Iranian human rights movement, and now Nobel peace prize winner, has spent so long in prison serving overlapping sentences and defiantly speaking out from behind bars that her family are not sure they will ever speak to her again, let alone meet.
Her husband and two twins exiled in France have been banned from direct communication for 18 months. She herself believes she will not be released, and still faces a further 154 lashings.
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the British Iranian dual-national who shared a prison ward with Mohammadi in Tehran, says: “She is tough, resilient, kind and extremely brave. She has been away from her kids for a very long time. She has sacrificed her life and family for the sake of the people of the country.”
But those who know her, and have spent time with her also say the 51-year-old is not headstrong and is far from immunised to the pain inflicted on her by ill-health, prison, or the fate of her fellow prisoners, including death. She herself once said: “The price of the struggle is not only torture and prison, it is a heart that breaks with every regret and a pain that strikes to the marrow of your bones.”
In her book White Torture, which expresses the horror of solitary confinement, she describes the mindbending fear and anxiety, and the paradox of dependence on your jailer, a form of Stockholm syndrome. The book takes the form of interviews with fellow political prisoners and was written during a brief period outside jail.
“Solitary confinement means being locked in a very small space. Four walls and a small iron door that are all the same colour, often white. There is no natural light inside the cell. There is no fresh air. No sound is heard there, and you cannot talk or associate with other human beings,” she wrote.
“News and information do not reach you. There are no newspapers, magazines, books, paper or pens. You have nothing in there except three thin, run-down blankets and a shirt and pants. An interrogator can allow you to use a bathroom and toilet or not.”
She described the threats, intimidation and pressure that were part of the interrogations. “Prisoners are subjected to false accusations and to psychological pressure to force false confessions. There is no contact with family, friends or lawyers. You are literally isolated, passive, and lonely,” she wrote. “Loneliness and helplessness affect the human mind day by day. Sometimes anxiety and fear … sometimes even illusions dominate the prisoner to a point where they are unable to make decisions or even think straight.”
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.
She entered college in the city of Qazvin to study nuclear physics, where she met her husband, Taghi Rahmani, who has himself spent a total of 17 years in prison. But she then began a career in journalism, working for newspapers that were at the time part of the reformist movement.
Rahmani left the country in May 2011 after escalating pressure from the authorities. Their children, Kiana and Ali, joined him in July 2015, and it is estimated they have been apart from their mother for all but six years. Mohammadi describes the longing to be with her children as an incurable and indescribable suffering.
Her refusal to be silenced in prison, from where she has sent out messages via Instagram or made calls on smuggled phones, has distinguished her, and infuriated the regime.
Estimates vary but it is believed Mohammadi has been convicted five times, arrested 13 times and sentenced to a total of 31 years in prison. The punishments started in 2009 when her passport was confiscated. The following year she was arrested from her home without a warrant and held in connection with her work with the Defenders of Human Rights Center, leading to an 11-year sentence that she began serving in April 2012. Mohammadi was released on bail on 30 July 2012 after a severe deterioration in her health.
As with many prisoners, incarceration has taken its toll on her. She suffers from a neurological disorder that can result in seizures, temporary partial paralysis, and pulmonary embolism – a blood clot in her lung.
Her refusal to stop campaigning, including over the horrific conditions inside Evin jail in Tehran, led to her rearrest in May 2015, this time on charges including “spreading propaganda against the system”, leading to a sentence of 16 years.
She was released in October 2020 after serving eight years of a 10-year sentence, only to be tried again in absentia six months later, and she was again taken to jail while attending a ceremony in November 2021 honouring the civilian protester Ebrahim Ketabdar, who was killed by Iranian security forces during nationwide protests in November 2019.
After a brief period on remand in January 2022, Mohammadi was handed the sentence she now serves. She was informed that the court had sentenced her to eight years and two months in prison; two years in internal “exile” in a city outside Tehran where she normally lives; a two-year ban on membership in political and social parties, groups or collectives; a two-year ban on engagement in online space, media and press; and 74 lashes.
In prison she writes, teaches and sings Persian classical music. On furlough from prison once at her home in Tehran, she sang a Turkish Azeri love song to her son in absentia. “He will come and go with no stories to tell. My Ali has gone and I feel so alone. My son has gone and I so feel alone.”
