OPINION:
Forty-four years ago last week, Iran was in the middle of a major tumult. The Shah’s corrupt dictatorship was on the verge of being ousted by a genuinely popular uprising. Tragically, that was followed by the ayatollahs’ savage theocracy. But after four decades of suffering, I sense freedom and democracy is on its way to Iran and that women will play a determining role in the forthcoming transformation of Iran and the whole region.
My firsthand experience leads me to this belief.
Between 2009 and 2014, I was imprisoned in Iran because of my efforts to organize student activism against the regime.
I am 34 years old and have been aware of that regime’s brutality for all my life, having lost two siblings to its crackdowns on dissent. But my time in prison made me even more intimately aware of that brutality, especially as it affects women.
While in a women’s prison, I saw evidence of long periods of solitary confinement in brightly lit, white rooms, beatings, stress positions, and the denial of access to medical treatment. When the target of the regime’s reprisal is a woman, sexual assault may be added to all of this. Integrators kept repeating, “You are alone here. We can do anything that we wish to you.”
While incarcerated in some of the most notorious prisons in Iran, including Qarachak women’s prison west of Tehran, I saw dozens and dozens of poor women who were ruthlessly beaten and mistreated by the misogynist regime. But deep inside, I also saw a burning mood of defiance among the women.
Last September, the international community got a glimpse of Iran’s abusive treatment of women after news broke regarding the tragic death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman, at the hands of “morality police.”
Amini’s death immediately sparked protests that are still ongoing today, more than four months later. Female activists have led many of those protests and have suffered many of the regime’s worst reprisals.
By some estimates, 750 people have been killed outright in crackdowns led mostly by the IRGC’s Basij militia. In December, the Iranian regime began executing the protesters based on bogus charges such as “enmity against God”. With 30,000 having been arrested since mid-September, the threat of more executions is vividly alarming.
In the summer of 1988 alone, the regime executed 30,000 prisoners as part of a crackdown that aimed to destroy the leading pro-democracy opposition group, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK). No senior Iranian official has ever been held accountable for those killings. The danger of another massacre looms large across the Islamic Republic.
Iranian officials and state media outlets have persistently attempted to brand the current protests as the work of “rioters” to justify harsh prosecution, including prosecution for capital crimes, of protests.
I was incarcerated amidst the 2009 uprising, and I could sense the fear and anxiety among the interrogators. My interrogator once clearly said: “If one day we are on our way out, we will kill you all.” This has made me more worried than ever about the fate of innocent protesters in jail. During the current uprising, they have courted the wrath of regime authorities by repeating slogans that have become ingrained in the activist movement in recent years, most of them actively promoted by “Resistance Units” that the MEK began organizing in 2014, right when my prison term was about to end.
The vision for Iran’s future has been outlined in detail by Maryam Rajavi, the woman who has been designated by the National Council of Resistance of Iran to serve as transitional president following the mullahs’ overthrow. This vision was totally in line with all the aspirations that I was fighting for before being arrested.
Now in exile, I can only imagine how much worse the situation could be for those who have been caught up in the escalating crackdown of an uprising that threatens the very fabric of the clerical regime. On one hand, I am deeply worried about the suffering that Iranian women, in particular, will experience. On the other hand, I am proud to know that when it is over, women will have played a major role in removing the mullahs from power.
Women have always been among the regime’s greatest victims, and so it was inevitable that they would take on leadership roles in the fight to establish a democratic alternative.
To facilitate change and create lasting democracy is the responsibility of the Iranian people in general and Iranian women in particular. My life-long dream has never been more tangible. I expect Western democracies to support these ideals for their own sake and for the sake of my fellow Iranians.
Last Sunday, I and thousands of other Iranians in Europe converged in Paris to echo the democratic aspirations of protesters in our homeland. Western lawmakers will also join to reiterate their support and calls for designating the Islamic Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist entity. By sanctioning the IRGC for what it really is, the international community can take a significant first step toward tipping the balance of power against the regime and in favor of the people.
Iranian women have shown tremendous courage. Western governments should do the same by aligning themselves with the Iranian people and supporting the democratic government that will soon take shape in Iran.
- Ms. Madadzadeh is a political activist. She spent five years in prison as a political prisoner in Iran.
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