Female Political Prisoners at Evin Protest Against ‘Misogynist Governance’

A number of female political prisoners at Evin released a statement protesting against “oppression and injustice against women.” According to them, “society’s awakened conscience will not tolerate these oppressions” and will soon provide for “the liberation of suffering mothers.”

Several female political prisoners detained at Evin released a statement protesting the Islamic Republic’s “misogynist” approach and “inhumane and unjust behaviors,” declaring that “society will not tolerate these oppressions.”

The incarcerated women at Evin, in their statement published on the website of the Iran Human Rights Defenders Center, referring to “years of struggle between dominant power and those seeking freedom and justice,” wrote: “This struggle and battle has manifested most clearly in the regime’s confrontation with mothers and motherhood over the years.”

The signatories of this statement, noting that “the government, despite emphasizing women’s role as mothers to confine them to the home, cannot tolerate the motherhood of protesting women,” wrote: “Many women have given birth to and raised their children in prison; mothers who have been denied even seeing the corpses and burial sites of their children; mothers who have been imprisoned for seeking justice for their children’s deaths or requesting their children’s release; or those forced to abandon their infants and spent years in separation from their children in prison without even a single day of leave; mothers who have been denied visits and seeing their children in prison visiting halls; and anxious mothers standing for hours behind prison doors waiting for the most basic right of embracing their children, enduring similar suffering.”

“Inhumane behaviors” of the regime toward women

The protest statement of female political prisoners at Evin, referring to “the misogynist regime’s conflict with women and mothers who have risen for freedom and justice,” cited examples of “inhumane behaviors” toward these women and mothers, stating: “Just in recent months, Frangis Mazloum was arrested despite illness for defending her son, Soheil Arabi. The mother of Alireza Shirmohammadi lost her son in prison due to not having 80 million tomans for bail. Raheleh Asil Ahmadi was arrested for seeking freedom for her son, Saba Kord Afshari, and there are many other cases.”

Female political prisoners detained at Evin also addressed the latest instances of such treatment, writing: “Five-year-old Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was forced to leave Iran so that after 3 years and 8 months, she could live with her father away from her mother. This is while officials have implicitly made her release conditional on the outcome of negotiations and dealings with Britain, and what is being overlooked in all this is people, their rights, justice and truth. From this perspective, the conduct of both governments is two sides of the same coin.”

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, an Iranian-British dual national sentenced to five years in prison on charges of participation in “soft overthrow,” had herself criticized the Islamic Republic’s handling of her case in a letter from Evin about two weeks earlier, stating that “my country sold me at a high price,” and said that “politicians” were using her and her daughter as “tools” to achieve their own goals.

“Society will not tolerate these oppressions”

Continuing in the statement of female political prisoners detained at Evin, we read: “We, the signatories of this statement, some of whom have ourselves experienced years of suffering from separation from our children, reiterate our protest against oppression of women, inhumane behaviors, and injustice.”

The signatories of this statement ultimately emphasized that Iranian women “on this side or that side of the prison wall” believe that “society’s awakened conscience will not tolerate these oppressions and not too long from now, but in the near dawn, through action and will and at every moment, will bring about the liberation of the suffering mothers of this land. Hand in hand in hope of bright days, let us be the voice of imprisoned mothers, for this act is the chapter heading of liberation of the pained conscience of human society.”

The statement by women imprisoned at Evin, dated Mehr 1398 (September-October 2019), was signed by 17 female political prisoners. Yasmin Aryani, Maryam Akbari Monfared, Sima Entesari, Ares Amiri, Marzieh Amiri Qahferkhi, Leila Hasanzadeh, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, Zahra Zehtabchi, Athena Daemi, Fatemeh Diayi, Monire Arabshahi, Negin Ghadamian, Saba Kord Afshari, Neda Naji, Narges Mohammadi, Fershte Mohammadi, and Sepideh Moradi are the signatories of this protest statement.

Source: DW