Narges Mohammadi from Evin Prison: Solitary confinement is mental, psychological and inhuman torture

This is the introduction to an open letter to the World Pen Association by Narges Mohammadi, a well-known human rights activist who was sentenced to 10 years in prison by Branch 15 of the Islamic Revolutionary Court of Tehran, presided over by Judge Abolghasem Salavati. She is currently serving her previous five-year sentence.

• I am writing this letter from the women's ward of Evin Prison. Out of the 25 women prisoners, there are women of letters and thought with diverse intellectual and political leanings. There are no female terrorists or saboteurs among us, and our accusations are all due to our political, civic, ideological activities and intellectual leanings that we have been sentenced to prison with heavy sentences. The total sentences of our 23 women are 177 years (two have not yet been sentenced).

In this letter, Narges Mohammadi discusses the complications and illnesses that are the result of solitary confinement, referring to these experiences as "white torture."

He objects to the conditions in which political, civil, and ideological activists are held in solitary confinement in prisons in the Islamic Republic.

The text of this letter was provided to the Campaign for Support of Imprisoned Mothers on Thursday, May 20: "What prompted me to write to you, writers and thinkers, in Jahannameh, is to recount the pain and suffering that goes beyond enduring prison sentences. A prison where, unlike all prisons in Iran, there are no telephones. Visits are held behind double-glazed windows and by phone, and we can only have in-person meetings with immediate family members once a month. Apart from one visit a week, we have no contact with the outside of the prison, and in the intervals between visits, we sink into silence and complete ignorance."

This political prisoner described the suffering and torment beyond prison as being endured in solitary confinement in security cells: "We, 25 women, have endured a total of 150 months (more than 12 years) in security cells, and this punishment is much more severe than the prison sentence that, unfortunately, defendants endure before the court and trial in a period called preliminary investigations, and this period (preliminary investigations) may last from one day to several years."

In her letter, Narges Mohammadi reported the continued use of solitary confinement to pressure defendants. This is despite the fact that civil and human rights activists have consistently protested the use of this violent method to extract confessions from defendants over the past years.

According to the letter, these confessions are the basis for severe sentences issued to political and ideological defendants and civil activists: "But this is not the whole story, and the pain does not end there. Many prisoners in solitary confinement lose their physical health and, worse, their mental health, sometimes suffering from these pains for the rest of their lives."

This political prisoner has likened the solitary confinement to a sealed can, where the accused is left in a dark and ambiguous space, deprived of what is necessary to feel and understand being human and to maintain their identity: "Deprivation of air, sound, light, etc. as natural stimuli, as well as news, writing, reading, etc. as mental stimuli."

Ms. Mohammadi, who has experienced solitary confinement three times since 2001, has written that in 2008, following interrogations, she suffered from repeated nervous breakdowns in solitary confinement, although she had never suffered from such a problem before.

In his thesis, this political prisoner called on writers and intellectuals who adhere to humane standards and defend freedom of expression to use the tools at their disposal to protest the use of solitary confinement as white torture, so that "perhaps one day we will witness the doors of solitary confinement being closed to people whose sin is thinking, criticizing, and reforming."