Nobel laureate Narges Mohammadi’s memoir details abuse in Iranian prison. She says she’s prepared for the consequences

During her incarceration at Tehran’s notorious Evin prison, Nobel peace laureate Narges Mohammadi would smuggle out fragments of writing with the help of her friends and fellow inmates.

The risks were enormous; Mohammadi , 54, has suffered violent beatings, fallen gravely ill and spent much of the last two decades in prison, away from her children, for her activism against the Iranian regime.

“One of my friends was trying to take out just three sheets of paper on a visiting day, but the prison security forces confiscated them from her,” Mohammadi told CNN’s Jomana Karadsheh Wednesday in one of her first interviews since being released from prison in May on temporary medical leave.

Another time, more than 20 of her notebooks were lost after she says she was badly beaten and exiled to another prison. But she kept writing, unafraid of the costs of speaking out, and has turned those fragments into a memoir “A Woman Never Stops Fighting,” which is being released this month in some European countries.

In the book, Mohammadi shares new details about the people responsible for her mistreatment in prison.

“In order to document these things, it is better to speak openly about their methods, to expose and reveal their torture,” she said, wearing a multi-colored dress with the word “peace” printed in different languages and sitting in front of a portrait of Mahsa Jhina Amini, who was killed after being held in custody by Iran’s morality police, sparking nationwide protests in the autumn of 2022.

Publishing a book like this is dangerous. “There may be consequences, but this is what life is like for us in this region and in this country,” she said.

“If I could go back to the moment when I began my struggle, to each and every moment when I was arrested, even knowing what would happen to me, I would certainly make the same choice to begin the struggle,” she said.

“But when I look at Ali and Kiana,” she added, referencing her now 19-year-old twins, “I find myself filled with doubt. Did I really have the right to deprive them of a very ordinary life, of having their mother with them? That is the difficult part of the question, and I cannot answer it with certainty.”

In total, Mohammadi, one of Iran’s most prominent human rights activists, has been sentenced to more than 44 years in prison as well as 154 lashes, according to her foundation. During her most recent stint behind bars between December and May, she endured beatings and “life-threatening mistreatment,” the Norwegian Nobel Committee said in February, citing “credible reports.”

Those reports said she was beaten repeatedly with wooden sticks and batons during her arrest in December and dragged across the ground by her hair, sustaining injuries that left open wounds on her head. She was also kicked repeatedly in the pelvis and genital area, leaving her in severe pain and unable to sit or function normally, Jørgen Watne Frydnes , chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, told CNN in February.

“I was held in solitary confinement for two months in that same condition, without being allowed to make phone calls or see my family or even my lawyers,” Mohammadi recalled.

She suffered a suspected heart attack in March, lost 20 kilograms (44 pounds) of weight and her condition deteriorated so much that her life was “in imminent danger,” her foundation warned in April.

After months of neglect by authorities, she was hospitalized for 18 days, suffering from heart disease caused by chronic anxiety and stress, her foundation said. At the time, Tasnim, one of Iran’s semi-official state news agencies, rejected reports her condition had deteriorated. Eventually, Mohammadi was discharged and temporarily allowed to return home. She says she is still receiving medical treatment.

Narges Mohammadi Foundation/AFP/Getty Images

She just won the Nobel Peace Prize. Hear what she told CNN from prison

Keeping prisoners in solitary confinement is “one of the government’s tools,” to “destroy a person” rather than simply executing them, Mohammadi said. The aim is to “break them down psychologically, emotionally and physically; to strip them of their identity, to strip them of their humanity, and to distort and undermine their perceptions,” she said.

Denying prisoners timely access to medical treatment is “another method that seriously endangers their health and, in some cases, leads to their death,” she said. “These deaths are a form of silent execution.”

Despite the risks that come with opposing the regime, two large-scale protest movements have convulsed Iran in recent years – one in January and one in the autumn of 2022 that was prompted by the death of 22-year-old Amini. Both were met with violent crackdowns from authorities.

“If you look at the streets of Tehran, and even at cities across the country, you can see how courageously women are standing tall in the streets,” Mohammadi said.

“Through the Woman, Life, Freedom movement, we were able to create the power of the protestor and present it to the world; that is, someone who had come out into the streets would be beaten, killed, imprisoned and executed, but they had a sense of power, a sense of legitimacy which forced the government to retreat.”

For Mohammadi, constantly straddling the dual identities of a mother and an activist, her book represents both a paean to those fighting for democracy as well as the “words of a mother who wrote this book in prison,” with her children living far way in exile in France.

“Ali and Kiana have always been the force that brought me back to life and kept me hopeful,” she said. “I hope to see them, embrace them, and see how much they have grown – to see whether I come up to their shoulders now, or they come up to mine – and to stand beside them again.”

在被关押于德黑兰臭名昭著的埃文监狱期间，诺贝尔和平奖获得者纳尔吉斯·穆罕默迪在朋友和狱友的帮助下，偷偷地将一些文字片段带出监狱。

风险巨大；54 岁的穆罕默迪因反对伊朗政权的活动，遭受过暴力殴打，身患重病，并在过去的二十年中大部分时间里都在监狱中度过，与她的孩子们分离。

“我的一位朋友在探视日想带走三张纸，但监狱保安人员没收了她的纸，”穆罕默迪周三告诉 CNN 的乔玛娜·卡拉德谢，这是她自 5 月份因临时医疗休假出狱以来首次接受采访。

另一次，她声称自己遭到毒打并被流放到另一所监狱后，20多本笔记本遗失了。但她依然坚持写作，无惧发声的代价，并将这些零散的笔记整理成回忆录《女人永不停止战斗》，该书将于本月在一些欧洲国家出版。

在书中，穆罕默迪透露了有关她在狱中遭受虐待的人的新细节。

“为了记录这些事情，最好公开谈论他们的方法，揭露他们的酷刑，”她说道。她身穿一件印有不同语言“和平”字样的彩色连衣裙，坐在玛莎·吉娜·阿米尼的画像前。阿米尼在被伊朗道德警察拘留后遇害，引发了2022年秋季的全国性抗议活动。

出版这样一本书很危险。“可能会有后果，但这就是我们这个地区、这个国家的真实生活，”她说。

“如果我能回到我开始抗争的那一刻，回到我被捕的每一个时刻，即使知道会发生什么，我肯定还会做出同样的选择，开始这场抗争，”她说。

“但当我看着阿里和基亚娜，”她补充道，指的是她现在19岁的双胞胎女儿，“我发现自己充满了怀疑。我真的有权利剥夺她们过上平凡生活的权利，剥夺她们与母亲相处的权利吗？这是问题中最难回答的部分，我无法给出确切的答案。”

据穆罕默迪的基金会称，这位伊朗最著名的人权活动家之一，已被判处超过44年监禁和154下鞭刑。挪威诺贝尔委员会在2月份援引“可靠报告”称，在她最近一次于去年12月至今年5月被监禁期间，她遭受了殴打和“危及生命的虐待”。

报道称，她在去年12月被捕期间遭到木棍和警棍的反复殴打，并被拽着头发拖行在地，头部受伤，留下开放性伤口。挪威诺贝尔委员会主席约根·瓦特内·弗里德内斯在2月份接受CNN采访时表示，她还遭到反复踢打，伤及骨盆和生殖器部位，导致她剧痛难忍，无法坐立或正常活动。

“我被单独监禁了两个月，条件和以前一样，不被允许打电话、见家人，甚至见律师，”穆罕默迪回忆道。

3 月份，她疑似心脏病发作，体重减轻了 20 公斤（44 磅），病情急剧恶化，生命“岌岌可危”，她的基金会在 4 月份发出警告。

据她的基金会称，在当局数月的忽视之后，她因长期焦虑和压力引发的心脏病住院18天。当时，伊朗半官方通讯社之一的塔斯尼姆通讯社否认了有关她病情恶化的报道。最终，穆罕默迪出院并被暂时允许回家。她说她仍在接受治疗。

Narges Mohammadi Foundation/法新社/Getty Images

她刚刚获得了诺贝尔和平奖。听听她在狱中接受CNN采访的内容。

穆罕默迪表示，将囚犯单独​​监禁是“政府用来‘摧毁人’而非直接处决他们的手段之一”。她说，其目的是“从心理、情感和生理上摧毁他们；剥夺他们的身份，剥夺他们的人性，扭曲和破坏他们的认知”。

她表示，剥夺囚犯及时获得医疗救治的权利是“另一种严重危害他们健康，甚至在某些情况下导致他们死亡的方法”。“这些死亡是一种无声的处决。”

尽管反对政权风险重重，但近年来伊朗仍爆发了两场大规模抗议运动——一场发生在1月份，另一场发生在2022年秋季，起因是22岁的阿米尼之死。这两场运动都遭到了当局的暴力镇压。

“如果你看看德黑兰的街头，甚至看看全国各地的城市，你就会看到女性们多么勇敢地站在街头，”穆罕默迪说。

“通过‘妇女、生命、自由’运动，我们得以展现抗议者的力量，并将其呈现给世界；也就是说，那些走上街头的人可能会遭到殴打、杀害、监禁和处决，但他们拥有一种力量感和合法性感，迫使政府退缩。”

对于身兼母亲和活动家双重身份的穆罕默迪来说，她的书既是对那些为民主而战的人的颂歌，也是“一位在狱中写下这本书的母亲的自述”，她的孩子们远在法国流亡。

“阿里和基亚娜一直是我重拾生活、保持希望的力量，”她说。“我希望见到她们，拥抱她们，看看她们长大了多少——看看我现在能到她们的肩膀，还是她们能到我的肩膀——并再次与她们并肩而立。”