"Narges Mohammadi": Every single person inside and outside Iran, shout out in unison
Narges Mohammadi sent an urgent message to every single person inside and outside Iran to shout out loud.
Narges Mohammadi is a human rights activist, political prisoner, former member of the Supreme Policy Council of the Reformists for the Consolidation of Unity, Vice President and Spokesperson of the Center for Human Rights Defenders. She won the Nobel Peace Prize last year.
Ms. Mohammadi has repeatedly written and published letters from prison against the government and in support of the Iranian people. On Sunday, May 2, in response to the torture and sexual harassment of detained journalist Dina Ghalibaf, she wrote in an urgent message to freedom-loving people inside and outside the country:
"Aware people of Iran! I am Narges Mohammadi. You can hear my voice from the women's ward of Evin Prison. Of course, my phone has been disconnected for nearly five months, and I am sending this message from Sepideh Qolyan's phone card. An hour ago, another Iranian girl, "Dina Ghalibaf," entered the women's ward of Evin Prison with a bruised body and a story of sexual harassment. For years, we have been witnessing stories of women who have been assaulted, harassed, and beaten by government agents; but today, the authoritarian theocratic government, not from a position of power but out of desperation, has taken a full-scale war against all women to all the streets of the country.
We women in this relentless war will either stop this war by being killed, or the people of Iran and the world will rise up to help us, so that we can stop this war by living in peace and force the misogynistic regime to retreat.
Aware people of Iran, I call on each and every one of you and all classes, guilds, artists, intellectuals, workers, teachers and students inside and outside the country to raise a united cry against war, assault, rape and beating of women. I call on the world and the world to stop this brutal, relentless war, which is a hideous and disgusting manifestation of gender apartheid; but I have a word for the proud women of Iran.
"O proud women of Iran! The ruthless tyrannical government thought that by attacking, raping, and degrading women, it would scare us and force us to retreat, but you, you nameless and anonymous women from Sistan and Baluchestan to Kurdistan, from Khuzestan to Azerbaijan and Tehran, and every point in Iran, did not retreat, but rather pushed the government back. We, the women of the resistance, live under the boots of tyranny in prison and on the streets at every moment of our lives, everywhere. My dears, do not underestimate your storytelling. These narratives will disgrace the misogynistic government and bring it to the ground. Send your narratives of arrest, assault, harassment, humiliation, beatings, and rape to my Instagram page."
