The winner of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, Iranian rights activist Narges Mohammadi, wears many hats. She is the mother of twins, a devoted wife of a husband forced into exile, and a former engineer and journalist. The prize was given to her as “the undisputed leader” of the whole freedom movement in Iran. Perhaps the hat she wears most proudly is that of political prisoner. She is still a prominent leader of other women in prison sentenced simply for their views or the shedding of their hijabs.
Women account for many if not most of the more than 20,000 people arrested since protests erupted a year ago after the death of a young woman in police custody for not wearing proper head covering. Ms. Mohammadi herself has been in and out of prison for 25 years since her university days, often enduring solitary confinement or harsh interrogation. In her two-volume book titled “White Torture,” she interviewed many of these women, not only to document the regime’s cruelty and illegality but also to discover “the antidote” to torture.
Torture can leave deep wounds, the book finds, but fails to achieve what the ruling mullahs intend: “The Islamic regime cannot separate a woman from her love for her family, her fellow citizens, or her God.” Women under harsh interrogation found that “the desire to live freely” alleviates their suffering. It gives them strength to continue. Some found “certainty in the ultimate victory of truth.” Muslims turned to Islam for solace, while Christians “called out to Christ.”
Under interrogation, a woman’s “inner sense of responsibility” emerges to “take care of herself and those who are emotionally and politically close to her.” Note that the book is not about silent stoicism but about how the women in prison learned to build something “more powerful than individual survival – they build networks of solidarity.” Women use the humiliation of prison as a “spiritual experience” to make themselves and others stronger.
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who was formerly imprisoned and shared a cell with Ms. Mohammadi in the notorious Evin Prison, responded to the awarding of the Nobel Prize by saying, “It makes me cry. She did so much for all of us in Evin. Narges is an inspiration and a pillar to the women in the female ward in Evin for her fearless fight against violation of women’s rights, use of solitary confinement and execution in the judicial system in Iran.”
In a commentary last month for The New York Times, Ms. Mohammadi wrote (from prison) that the “struggle will continue until the day when light takes over darkness and the sun of freedom embraces the Iranian people.” Many like her have already found that light.