prison – Official Website of Nasrin Parvaz

I was tortured for eight years in Iran’s notorious Evin Prison – the UK must not turn its back on survivors like me

I can’t stop thinking about my fellow prisoners. People held in Evin have already suffered so much, and now this. For those of us who’ve been imprisoned, moments like this bring all the painful memories flooding back. All I can see are the faces of friends lost to executions.

For all of us – those still inside Iran or living in exile – these attacks are nothing short of psychological torture. Families wait in agony for news. Survivors like me relive their worst nightmares.

It’s been more than thirty years since I was imprisoned, but I remember it like it happened yesterday. I was held for eight years, threatened with sexual violence. And tortured. My ‘crime’? Speaking out against human rights abuses, state executions and women’s inequality. For this they called me a spy.

When I fled for my life, I left everything behind – my family, my friends, my home. Arriving in the UK, I had nothing. I felt so lost and alone. But I was lucky. I escaped. I’ve been able to heal, to rebuild, to find my voice again.

Now, I use my voice through writing, art, and activism. These are powerful tools for survivors like me. Sharing my story means I can raise awareness of the horrors still happening in Iran. Being able to do this has helped give my life meaning after everything I lost.

This year, on the United Nations International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, I stood with Freedom from Torture to unveil billboards across London, amplifying survivors’ voices. As conflict and repression escalate around the world, we’re calling for renewed public support to end torture.

My words now stand tall in Shadwell, East London: “I spoke out against executions in my country. I was tortured for it.” I am one of the lucky ones. I can stand here today and speak proudly and freely. But my heart aches for those still silenced, those being tortured for the simple act of standing up for what’s right.

The torturers tried to take my voice. But through therapy, writing and art, I reclaimed it. And now, our words are displayed for all to see. People need to understand why survivors like me are targeted: for standing up for basic rights, for falling in love, for dreaming of equality or just wanting to exist peacefully.

We’re asking the British public to stand with us – to welcome us as neighbours, as survivors, as people rebuilding our lives in safety. At this critical moment, when the UK Government threatens to weaken vital protections for survivors, we urge the country to stand firm: the absolute ban on torture must be upheld, with no exceptions. I believe the British people will choose compassion over cruelty. We need to remember that silence only helps the torturers, so together we must be louder.

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Nasrin Parvaz became a civil rights activist when the Islamic regime took power in 1979. She was arrested in 1982, tortured and imprisoned for eight years. Parvaz is the author of One Woman’s Struggle in Iran: A Prison Memoir and The Secret Letters from X to A.

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Source: https://www.lbc.co.uk/opinion/views/tortured-iran-evin-prison-uk-survivors/

Torture and War Will Always Create Refugees at TEDx University of St Andrews

My Torturers Tried to Silence Me, But Art Gave Me Back My Voice

More than thirty years ago, I suffered terribly at the hands of the Iranian government. I was imprisoned for eight years, and they tried to silence me with torture. All I’d done was take to the streets to demand my freedom and liberty from an oppressive and authoritarian regime.

The torturers tried to take my voice away. And therapy, writing and art played a vital role in helping me to express myself again. When I first came to the UK, after leaving my friends and family behind, I felt lost. But I was given support by organisations like Freedom from Torture that had a transformative impact on my life. I joined Write to Life, a creative writing group for survivors of torture. Through writing I regained my voice.

For many years writing was a means of escape for me. But art opened my eyes and I realised that it could be a way of fighting back, as well as a means of change. It can provide a counterpoint to what those in power and their media are showing to people. Art can change people’s minds. That’s why art is seen as a threat to power. Look how many artists are imprisoned in Iran from rappers, like Toomaj Salehi, to film makers and other artists.

Sharing my story through writing, and now through my art, is such a powerful way to tell difficult stories. It can give such an important insight into the very painful realities faced by those of us who’ve experienced torture. Today, I’m a member of Survivors Speak OUT (the UK’s torture survivor-led activist network) and I can raise awareness of the horrors happening in Iran. Being able to do this has helped give my life meaning since I had to leave my home.

I’ve listened and watched in terror at the violence that has swept across my country, since the death of 22-year-old Jina Mahsa Amini at the hands of the abusive “morality police” in September 2022. Although media interest is disappearing, the wave of protests sparked by Amini’s death haven’t died away, they’ve just changed. Instead of thousands taking to the streets, young people gather to dance, and women risk their lives and liberty just to sing.

Now, things like street dancing, singing, paintings and music are such an important way for people in Iran to protest. Many forms of art – like songs, digital art, videos, graffiti – have been created during the Woman, Life, Freedom revolution. Each of them emphasises protest actions, resistance, and different forms of activities against the regime’s repressive system. My own work explores personal and political journeys based on both my life and collective experiences that I have witnessed and heard about.

At first, I only wanted to show what had happened in prison, but now I have so many other ideas, I don’t have enough time to paint them all. My work explores the vulnerabilities of humans, of issues like refugee and women’s rights. I try and capture this in my work, regardless of the media I use, through drawing, painting, sculpture or print making.

When I first got to the UK, my head was full of the scenes of prison. All I could think about were the faces of my friends who’d been executed, the noise of the firing squad and the crying of hungry children in the prison, the torture that we experienced, and the face of my father when I told him I’d been sentenced to death. Therapy helped me to slowly clear these images from my head, and over time, I was able to feel safe and strong again.

Still so many people in Iran have been imprisoned, they’ve been tortured and are languishing in prisons. I was lucky, I was able to get out. I’ve had the chance to recover and rebuild my life here in the UK. But my heart aches for the women who are still being subjected to the same kind of torture that I was. It’s horrific and depressing that this is still happening.

Iran is one of the top countries of origin of Freedom from Torture’s clients. There are many people like me who have fled their homes and reached the UK hoping just to live in safety. The therapists, lawyers and welfare advisors offer a lifeline to people who crucially need compassion, support and rehabilitation to recover.

Those in power in Iran now will do anything to try and suppress any opposition. Ex-prisoners, families of those still imprisoned, or anyone remotely politically active are being threatened and intimidated by security forces. It’s just more abuse carried out by an authoritarian regime that will stop at nothing to eradicate any form of defiance.

We need to continue to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the women and young people demanding the basic rights that we, in other parts of the world, take for granted and enjoy every single day. I’m calling on the international community and media to keep shining a spotlight on my country to demand that the regime stop using torture immediately.

Nasrin Parvaz became a civil rights activist when the Islamic regime took power in 1979. She was arrested in 1982, tortured and imprisoned for eight years. Parvaz is the author of One Woman’s Struggle in Iran: A Prison Memoir and The Secret Letters from X to A.

Article originally appeared on Huckmag.

I was tortured for 8 years in an Iran prison

It’s the smell of blood I remember most vividly.

When I heard about the recent fire at Iran’s Evin Prison, I was taken back to the time I was imprisoned there for eight years during the 1980s for opposing the Iranian regime’s gender apartheid.

During that time, I was tortured so badly I was temporarily paralysed, and developed a brain tumour that was not removed until 2012.

As protests continue across the country, and the authorities crack down on those fighting for their rights, it seems little has changed for detainees.

But when I look at what’s happening now, I feel a mixture of anger and pride, fear and hope.

Saman Yasin held his head in his hands as the judge read out his death sentence.

The 27-year-old Kurdish rapper, whose popular songs touched on topics of unemployment and oppression, was sentenced last week by an Islamic Revolutionary Court, with no family or lawyers present.

His crime? Moharebeh – enmity against God.

Saman is one of the latest victims of the Iranian regime’s bloodthirsty efforts to crush the protests that have swept the country since the death of 22-year old Mahsa Amini after she was arrested by Iran’s feared morality police.

Like so many young Iranians, Yasin was abducted from his home in early October, after posting his support for the protesters to his more than 200,000 social media followers. Human rights groups claim he was physically and psychologically tortured in custody.

A photo of Mahsa Amini, a young woman — Protests have swept the country since the death of Mahsa Amini (Picture: Reuters)

The rapper’s politicised lyrics may have placed him in the regime’s firing line, but he is far from the only cultural icon targeted in the recent crackdown.

Fellow rapper Toomaj Salehi is facing similar charges, blogger Hossein Ronaghi has allegedly had his legs broken in detention, while prominent film directors, writers and journalists have all disappeared into Iran’s prison system.

Even athletes are being targeted, since Iranian climber Elnaz Rekabi’s brave decision to compete at the Asian Championships without her hijab last month.

After Iranian beach football star Saeed Piramoon made a gesture of solidarity with protestors after scoring the winning goal in Iran’s thrilling victory over Brazil at the International Beach Soccer Tournament last week, authorities said they would be ‘dealt with’, amid reports they had been detained.

With so many athletes making clear their support for the protests, many Iranians are unimpressed with their national team’s more muted protest during their world cup loss to England, particularly after they were photographed smiling with Iran’s president Raeisi just days before flying out to Qatar.

Iran players line up for the national anthem (Picture: Julian Finney/Getty Images)

The arrest of so many prominent Iranians surely reveals the fear the imperilled regime feels at its failure to quell the protests.

While previous attempted uprisings, like 2019’s fuel price protests, were crushed into submission, each fresh outrage has only swelled the numbers taking to the streets across the country.

As many as 15,000 people have reportedly been arrested, and several hundred killed since the protests began, including at least 40 children.

Iran’s prisons are notorious hotbeds for human rights abuses.

Torture is often routine, as I myself has experienced. Sexual violence is rife. In October, 21-year-old Armita Abbasi was hospitalised after, it has been suspected, she was repeatedly raped by security forces.

Before her family could visit her, she was abducted again by the Revolutionary Guard and she is still being held.

At Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison, multiple people were killed in a fire which was believed to have been started deliberately when prisoners were locked in their cells, with those caught up in the blaze reporting that guards attacked them with tear gas and live ammunition.

When I was imprisoned in Evin Prison in 1988, thousands of political prisoners were slaughtered at the whim of Ayatollah Khomeini, in a massacre orchestrated by current president Raeisi.

In the buildup to the killings, our family visits were cancelled.

Cut off from the outside world, we would have political debates in our cells to distract ourselves from the reality that we feared for our lives.

Then, the interrogations began. We were forced to wear our chadoors, then blindfolded and taken from our cells to the feared interrogation building and questioned incessantly.

‘Are you Muslim? Will you repent? Will you condemn moharebeh?’

More than 50 prisoners were taken from my wing and I never saw them again. It turns my stomach knowing that today’s activists in Evin are suffering as we suffered.

An artist's painting, four protesting naked women with fire shooting from their breasts — One of Nasrin’s artworks (Picture: Nasrin Parvaz)

Generations of Iranians have been suppressed under the regime’s reign of terror – but in its brutality, the regime has united Iranians from all social classes and every corner of the country.

To quote Toomaj Salehi’s protest anthem The Battlefield: ‘From athlete to artist, peddler to businessman, student and teacher, engineer and labourer, we deafen the dictator’s ear.’

For the first time, the regime appears to be fighting for its survival. Protests have only grown in recent days, and a report claims that officials are preparing to flee the country.

But if the sacrifices of Saman, Toomaj, Mahsa, Saeed and every Iranian who has risked their lives for the dream of freedom are not to be in vain, they need solidarity from the rest of the world.

Source: Metro

Petition: More Than 50 Political Prisoners Who Were Tortured Are Condemned to Execution in Iran

More than 50 political prisoners who were tortured and spent time in solitary confinement are condemned to execution. Some of them are condemned with two charges of execution and some are also condemned with public execution. All of them were born during the Islamic regime and were arrested in a peaceful demonstration.

Sign the petition here.

A Video for Women Prisoners in Iran

Born In Prison – Paintings

‘Escape isn’t a possibility’: paintings of Evin

t is forbidden to take photos inside or around Evin, Iran’s most notorious prison. Those who break these rules can pay the ultimate price. In the summer of 2003 an Iranian-Canadian freelance photographer, Zahra Kazemi, died inside Evin after taking pictures of the families of missing students, demonstrating outside the prison gates. The Iranian authorities claimed that Kazemi’s death was accidental, but a medical examiner concluded that she had been tortured and killed.

Evin Prison, which was founded in 1972 under the Shah’s monarchy but really came to the fore of statecraft after the Islamic Revolution of 1979, has been a home to all manner of political prisoners through the decades, from academics to philosophers to missionaries to activists. The nature of the people it has held, the size of the place, and the treatment of many who have been detained within its walls, is such that its reputation precedes it.

In Iran, it is prohibited to take pictures in areas deemed to be “sensitive”. But when it comes to Evin, where we don’t have photographs, we do have art: the experiences of prisoners recreated with evocative beauty.

Nasrin Parvaz was part of a wave of idealistic youth who fought for change after the Islamic Revolution, when the Western-backed Shah and a 2,500-year monarchy was overthrown and an Islamic Republic installed. Three years later, aged 23, Parvaz was arrested for her dissent, detained in Evin and sentenced to death. Over the next eight years, she was tortured, starved and made to live in abject conditions.

Parvaz now lives in exile in London. But, for her and other former prisoners, memories of Evin don’t leave. “It isn’t only when you’re in prison,” she says, “it’s also about what you’re bringing with you when you’re out of prison.” Her artistic exploration of her time in Evin began with the idea that there were no pictures or vivid paintings depicting her experience of being a political prisoner.

Her paintings memorialise a place where she suffered greatly but where she also found beauty, friendship and solidarity. What follows is a collection of her work, memorialising the sights and sounds of her imprisonment.