In a new letter, renowned imprisoned Iranian human rights activist Narges Mohammadi has written from prison about how women are being physically abused during arrest and inside prisons in Iran. Mohammadi is serving a 10-year prison sentence for her human rights work.

Read Narges Mohammadi’s full eyewitness account below.

Full Letter by Narges Mohammadi

Having witnessed the horrifying and shocking escalation of the regime’s physical violence against women protesters, I want to express my concern to the international community and call on the world to prevent the escalation and continuation of the regime’s blatant violence against women in Iran.

Over the past several months, we have witnessed women and girls entering the ward with bruised and injured faces, heads, and bodies. Each time an injured woman arrived, we were shocked and concerned. We went to the ward office and raised our concerns, but physical violence against women has become so severe that reporting it and protesting it no longer accomplishes anything.

1. More than three months ago, we witnessed the arrival of a woman of around 70 years of age who had been beaten so severely on the night of her arrest that the blackening around her eyes and the bruises on her face and body had still not disappeared 25 days later, when she was released on bail. She had suffered frightening blows to the head, raising concerns about a possible head injury.

2. Around the same time, a 20-year-old woman entered the ward who had been suffering from rib pain for a long time. On the night of her arrest, she had been beaten in the street by male officers. The physician at Evin Prison’s medical clinic confirmed that she had sustained an injury to her ribs.

3. A month ago, a young woman entered the ward with swelling and an injury to her cheek. Her arms and hands were covered in bruises. The prison physician said that her cheekbone had a hairline fracture. She cried out in pain while eating. One officer had struck her in the face, while another had squeezed both sides of her jaw with his hands so forcefully that her jaw made a cracking sound, leaving her unable to chew properly.

4. Several weeks ago, another young woman arrived with bruises on her lower leg, shoulder, and arms. The other women gathered around her and pointed out the bruises. She had been severely beaten and repeatedly said, “I thought my leg was broken.”

5. Another woman arrived. As usual, my first question was whether she had been brought from home or from a cell. She said: “I was in a place for one day where male officers were slapping me in the face and kicking me in the stomach, while threatening me. I looked everywhere in the cell, but there wasn’t even a camera.” She was subsequently transferred to Vozara and then here. A few days later, she was transferred to Ward 209 of Evin Prison for interrogation.

Although, for numerous political and security reasons, only a very limited number of detainees are transferred to the women’s ward of Evin Prison, over the past three months we have witnessed cases of severe beatings and serious injuries. Unnamed detainees who, because they are under investigation, facing prosecution, or being threatened, do not publicize the physical violence they experience—and whose families also avoid speaking about it—are being subjected to violent physical assaults by security forces.

As someone who has witnessed the horrifying and potentially fatal physical violence carried out by the government against women protesters, I state that this level of physical violence in places of detention and illegal detention facilities constitutes systematic torture intended to create intimidation and terror. It could lead to irreparable tragedies. This is violence that we have witnessed intensifying over the past several months.

I appeal to our courageous compatriots, international human rights organizations, women’s organizations and feminists around the world, journalists and writers—including the United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights—to take action to prevent the escalation and continuation of the regime’s deadly violence against women protesters in Iran.

Let the government understand that intensifying violence and repression will not weaken the people’s determination to move beyond an authoritarian religious system. Rather, it will leave the people with no alternative but to pursue that path.

Narges Mohammadi

Evin Prison

August 2023