Narges Mohammadi: Every Single Person Inside and Outside Iran, Scream Out Loud

Narges Mohammadi sent an urgent message to every single person inside and outside Iran calling on them to scream out loud.

Narges Mohammadi is a human rights activist, political prisoner, and former member of the Supreme Council of the Reformists’ Policy-Making Board of the Unity Consolidation. She is the Vice President and spokesperson of the Defenders of Human Rights Center. She became the winner of 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. She wrote an urgent message to freedom-loving people inside and outside the country on Sunday, April 22, in response to the torture and sexual abuse of Dina Ghalibaf, a detained journalist:

“Aware people of Iran! I am Narges Mohammadi. You hear my voice from the women’s ward of Evin Prison. Of course, my phone has been cut off for nearly five months, and I am sending this message from Sepideh Ghilian’s phone card. An hour ago, another daughter of Iran, ‘Dina Ghalibaf,’ arrived in the women’s ward of Evin Prison with a bruised body and an account of sexual harassment. For years, we have been witnessing accounts of women who have endured assault, harassment, and beating by government agents; but today, the despotic religious government, not from a position of strength but out of desperation, has launched an all-out war against all women on every street in the country.

We women, in this merciless war, will either stop this war with our death or the people of Iran and the world will stand with us to help us stop this war by living and making peace, and force the woman-hating regime to retreat.

Aware people of Iran, I ask each and every one of you and all classes, professions, artists, intellectuals, workers, teachers, and students inside and outside the country to scream out loud against war, assault, rape, and the beating of women. I ask the world and the people of the world to stop this savage, merciless war, which is the ugly and repugnant manifestation of gender apartheid; but I have a word for the dignified women of Iran.

O dignified women of Iran! The cruel despotic government thought that by assaulting, raping, and violating women’s honor, it would frighten us and force us to retreat; but you, you nameless and unknown women from Sistan and Baluchestan to Kurdistan and from Khuzestan to Azerbaijan and Tehran and every corner of Iran did not retreat; rather, you pushed the government to retreat. We women of resistance live the narrative of resistance at every moment of our lives, in every place under the boots of despotism, in prison and on the streets. My dear ones, do not underestimate your own storytelling. These narratives will shame the woman-hating government and topple it. Send your account of arrest, assault, harassment, humiliation, beating, and rape to my Instagram page.”