Interview
Narges Mohammadi: Guilty of feminism
‘As a woman who is seeing and suffering sexual apartheid in her own country, I think that as long as this apartheid exists, lasting peace is impossible.’
In Iran, it is a “difficult and turbulent time, a time of protests. University students, women, teachers, workers, retirees and various sectors of the civilian population are taking to the streets every day to demonstrate against the Islamic Republic,” says Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi, who on December 19 spoke before the Italian Parliament's Standing Committee on Human Rights, with a photograph of Mahsa Amini by her side, about the life of Iranian men and women under the Masoud Pezeshkian regime: “Poverty, unemployment, inflation and the ecological crisis have fueled people's anger. The responses from the other side are street violence, imprisonments and show trials.”
These methods have resulted in the journalist, writer and women's rights activist being arrested countless times. She has already served 10 years in prison and 135 days in solitary confinement. And the worst is yet to come: temporarily released from Evin Prison in September to undergo urgent medical treatment, after this had been denied numerous times by the regime, Mohammadi still has 11 more years left on her sentence.
She tells il manifesto about one of the charges explicitly listed in the sentence: “Being a feminist.” During the hearing, Laura Boldrini reiterated Italy's commitment to the introduction of the crime of gender segregation in the Convention on Crimes against Humanity under discussion at the UN, and welcomed Mohammadi's request to set respect for human rights as a precondition for any diplomatic and trade agreements with Iran.
You’ve drawn a common thread between gender apartheid in Iran and Afghanistan.
In Iran, obtaining a passport and traveling abroad requires permission from the legal guardian, a role exclusively reserved to the fathers for daughters and the husbands for wives. In the courts, the testimony and statement of a male witness is considered equivalent to those of two women. Blood money (diyah – compensation for killing, bodily harm and property damage) and inheritances for women are half those for men. Marital rape is not only not considered a crime, but Iranian men can file “noncompliance” complaints against their wives if they refuse them sex. For women in Iran, permission for marriage before reaching the legal age is not an obstacle if this is deemed appropriate by the father or paternal grandfather. And the worrying trend of child marriages is evident in the statistics: according to the Iranian Statistical Center, in the first three quarters of 2022 there were more than 20,000 cases of marriages to women under 15, and 1,085 births to mothers under 15. In the spring of 2021, the number of marriages involving girls between the ages of 10 and 14 saw an increase of about 32 percent from the previous year. These numbers represent only the official statistics. Many of the same laws and situations also apply to women in Afghanistan, and under the Taliban they are even harsher and more oppressive.
Who are the women you met in Evin prison?
Among more than 70 political prisoners, the women's ward in Evin includes people with different political, intellectual and religious beliefs who have united against the regime's repression. In particular, after the killing of Mahsa (Jina) Amini and the explosion of the Woman, Life, Freedom movement, we carried out various forms of protest in our cell block, including nightly sit-ins, rallies and the occupation of prison guard corridors, all with slogans and singing hymns. We sent numerous individual and collective statements outside the prison. We continually faced violence and deprivation, including bans on phone calls and visits, denial of medical care and even added sentences. The first mass hunger strike against death sentences took place after the execution of Mohammad Ghobadlou, which had a profound effect on public opinion on the issue of executions in the regime's prisons. Then the No to Execution campaign began in Ghezel Hesar prison, which quickly spread to other prisons in the country. For the first time in more than 15 years, today we are seeing the return of death sentences against female prisoners, such as Pakhshan Azizi and Verisheh Moradi. That is why we shut down the prison for days. Along with four others, I was tried and sentenced to additional jail time. Although these peaceful protests are costing many prisoners dearly, the women's block is not stopping its fight against death sentences. One day we tried to get medical treatment for two prisoners in distress, one being the sister of a prisoner sentenced to death, in shock after learning of the execution of Reza Rasai [a protester hanged in August 2024 after he was accused of killing a member of the Pasdaran]. We were violently assaulted.
It must be recognized that a prisoner is a human being, and every human being struggles for survival in different ways. Singing, dancing, cutting or styling one's hair, wearing colorful clothes, laughing and finding joy – all these are ways to feel that one is still alive.
What about the role of art against the regime?
Artists, filmmakers and members of the film industry are the ones who shape global awareness about peace: they must not look away from the Iranian people and the women of the Middle East. They can truly bring the issues of executions and gender apartheid to the forefront of global consciousness so that one day democracy, freedom, equality and lasting peace may prevail.
There can be no peace and freedom for peoples without women's freedoms and self-determination. Woman, Life, Freedom and Arab feminisms have proven this.
The killing of protesters and political dissidents in the streets is as awful and shocking as the murder of innocent civilians under bombs and missiles. The Islamic Republic regime is aggressive, hostile to the fundamental rights of the Iranian people and does not even respect its own laws. Dying at the hands of occupying forces is war, but what should we call dying at the hands of an oppressive and authoritarian regime that has ruled for 45 years? As a woman who is seeing and suffering sexual apartheid in her own country, I think that as long as this apartheid exists, lasting peace is impossible. In the same way, with the absence of women's basic rights in the Middle East, and in the presence of domination, discrimination and repression, democracy, freedom and equality in the world are meaningless. They are like infected and sickening wounds on the consciousness of humanity.
Originally published at https://ilmanifesto.it/colpevole-di-femminismo on 2025-02-22