Nasrin Sotoudeh (proper) and her husband Reza Khandan maintain a button from the “I OPPOSE THE MANDATORY HIJAB” marketing campaign.
I spoke with Nasrin and her husband Reza Khandan final month over a Zoom name—organized by Jeff Kaufman and Marcia Ross, producers of the award-winning documentary Nasrin (streaming on YouTube and Prime Video).
Kathy Spillar: Thank you for speaking with me immediately, and thanks each, for every thing that you just’re doing within the battle for ladies’s basic rights in Iran. It’s inspiring, and we’re so honored to have the ability to cowl these points in Ms.
Nasrin Sotoudeh: Thank you a lot, expensive Kathy. I understand how extraordinary your solidarity with us has been over time throughout my arrests. It’s very significant to be in contact with you. I’m deeply cognizant of what Ms. [and the] Feminist Majority Foundation have accomplished for us.
Nasrin Sotoudeh in Tehran, Iran. Being outdoors and not using a hijab, Sotoudeh is risking arrest. (Courtesy of Nasrin Sotoudeh)
Spillar: The work that you just’re doing is so vital and we all know the horrific situations that you just undergo by way of once you’re in jail. I would like you to know that along with masking the Woman, Life, Freedom revolution in Iran, we’re additionally working with a coalition right here within the U.S, with Iranian and Afghan ladies pushing the U.N. to outline gender apartheid as a criminal offense towards humanity.
Beyond working with the coalition right here within the U.S., how can we be of better assist?
Sotoudeh: It’s actually necessary to maneuver ahead in a scientific approach to make gender apartheid a criminal offense towards humanity.
But we ladies in Afghanistan and Iran are profoundly conscious that this can be a battle that we have to wage and win at residence. And we definitely study an unlimited quantity from what you’re doing on the surface, internationally. What’s happening in Iran proper now could be an try to reverse the clock and take issues again to the situations earlier than Mahsa [Amini].
Spillar: What are the situations presently like in Iran?
Sotoudeh: Just lately, my telephone was ringing off the hook as a result of greater than 80 ladies have been arrested in Tehran for not being veiled. The arrests have been very aggressive and harsh, accompanied by every kind of insults hurled at ladies who weren’t sporting the hijab. The ladies would get thrown into vans, and the subsequent day, they’ve court docket instances and fines. The violence on the time of arrest is sort of excessive. The actual battle is that, as soon as once more, we see the lives of younger ladies in nice, nice threat, and that’s a problem of nice concern.
It’s actually necessary to maneuver ahead in a scientific approach to make gender apartheid a criminal offense towards humanity.
Nasrin Sotoudeh
Spillar: Nasrin, might you inform us extra about what occurred on the funeral of Armita, the younger teenager who was killed for not being veiled?
Sotoudeh: In late October, about 150 people individually, none of whom actually knew one another, gathered for the funeral of Armita. I used to be there with Manzar, who’s a good friend and acquaintance of mine, who misplaced 4 of her members of the family within the Ukrainian flight that was downed within the aftermath of the Soleimani assassination.
We have been gathered on the gravesite and the proceedings within the funeral have been virtually over. But we observed that in the direction of the tip of the ceremony, the Basij [a unit trained by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] started to create disturbances and attacked my good friend. They pushed her down on prime of the grave and once I got here to assist her, they pushed me down too.
I fell on her and so they pushed one other individual onto me. They lifted us and escorted us to their vans. They tried to seize me by the hair however since I put on it quick, they couldn’t pay money for a lot.
They grabbed my cellular, and there have been two feminine officers pushing us into the van and so they have been attempting to stuff as many people into the van as they might. There have been already 12 or 13 of the mourners that they’d kind of stuffed within the van, however the van regarded fairly full to me, and I refused to go in.
I used to be sitting on the door of the van and refusing to go in, and whereas I used to be in that place, there was this veiled lady us with tears in her eyes and I simply observed her. I assumed she was additionally arrested or going to be arrested. While I used to be there, they began kind of utilizing these shockers, taser form of issues, towards my legs three or 4 instances. Some of the younger folks inside began yelling, “Don’t do this! Don’t do this!” It turned a little bit of a commotion and so they have been pressured to shut the door.
I fell on her and so they pushed one other individual onto me. They lifted us and escorted us to their vans. They tried to seize me by the hair however since I put on it quick, they couldn’t pay money for a lot.
Nasrin Sotoudeh
Just a few days later, whereas I used to be in jail, one in all my jail mates got here to me and mentioned that she’d heard from that very lady who was veiled outdoors and so they couldn’t stuff her into the van, and she or he had requested my good friend about me. She was expressing her appreciation to me—due to me resisting, they have been unable to stuff her into the van.
Spillar: Where did they take you? Did they inform you?
Sotoudeh: So, what was fairly eerie about this complete factor was that, after they took us to this detention heart—closed area, only a tiny little window—they took us in by way of the again door. We had no concept the place it was. If you recall throughout the Woman, Life, Freedom motion, after they killed Mahsa and the protests exploded, they mentioned they have been going to shut the Vozara Detention Center, however whereas we have been there, we had this sense that we have been truly being held in Vozara once more.
And once I was going by way of this backyard space to go to the lavatory, I might see the lights of a hospital referred to as Kasra Hospital, which I knew was very near Vozara Detention Center. That was the hospital the place Mahsa died.
Even after they have been telling us we weren’t in Vozara, we knew, the equipment for the repression of ladies may be very a lot intact. Vozara is there. The detention facilities are there. The troops they use for this function, the morality police, are there—they’re primed and able to pounce.
Spillar: What have been the situations like, in Vozara?
Sotoudeh: The environment may be very vulgar. And the insults directed on the ladies are horrific and nasty. And regardless that the killing of Mahsa has put lots of stress on the safety forces to not have interaction in bodily violence, each me and Manzar have been shoved and attacked for attempting to defend the opposite women.
Manzar is in her 70s now, and when she learnt we have been being taken to Qarchak Prison, she began having convulsions and so they have been pressured to launch her.
The equipment for the repression of ladies may be very a lot intact.
Nasrin Sotoudeh
Activists attend the birthday celebration of then-jailed Nasrin Sotoudeh, outdoors the embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran on May 31, 2019, in The Hague, Netherlands. (Pierre Crom / Getty Images)
Spillar: Nasrin, are you able to inform us extra about why the Armita story actually issues? And what she stands for?
Sotoudeh: Armita actually was the second lady that we formally know was killed for not sporting a veil. I feel that the precise variety of ladies and women who’ve been killed for not sporting the veil might be a lot, a lot greater. In Armita’s case, she’d misplaced her life very a lot in the identical method as Mahsa, in that kind of informal and gratuitous manner.
I made the journey to her funeral with out sporting a veil, and it was fairly a protracted journey. I needed to say that we ladies are in all places—we’re within the metro, in eating places, stadiums, streets, houses, in all places, and we refuse to put on the veil, and also you’re not going to erase us.
We perceive that’s very a lot associated to what’s being tried on this nation and that we can not solely battle for ourselves. We should do what we are able to to help your fights as a result of there’s a sisterhood globally, and ladies face lots of the identical discriminations in all places. Everywhere. There isn’t a single nation the place ladies are totally equal and free, and we really feel that our battle right here is essential and to be supportive of your battle in Iran.
We additionally face an organized, violent, extremist motion on this nation to show again the clock by stopping abortion. Anti-abortion extremists assault clinics. They have killed docs. They have killed younger ladies who have been the receptionists at clinics. They arson. They bomb. So, that violence can be used right here towards ladies’s rights activists and feminists.
Reza Khandan: Kathy, thanks a lot for sharing these tales with us and educating us about what’s occurring in America.
Many, a few years in the past, if I have been requested in regards to the issues in Iran, I’d say that relative to us, many of those issues have been solved within the U.S. and that you just didn’t have as a lot to fret about, but it surely’s so vital to acknowledge that each one of us are always prone to sudden shifts within the political situations after which dramatic makes an attempt at reversal, taking the clock again in time. And so, it’s actually necessary to have a shared understanding of how shortly and out of the blue these reversals can happen once we even have the phantasm of progress.
We ladies are in all places—we’re within the metro, in eating places, stadiums, streets, houses, in all places, and we refuse to put on the veil, and also you’re not going to erase us.
Nasrin Sotoudeh
Nasrin Sotoudeh and Reza Khandan. (Courtesy of Jeff Kaufman)
Spillar: Reza, you wrote an exquisite piece for Ms. that we have been honored to publish about Nasrin’s work and the aftermath of the brutal homicide of Mahsa Amini. How has that motion impacted Iran?
Khandan: We can’t ignore how extremely highly effective the Mahsa motion has been. Perhaps the shift isn’t so obvious on the degree of politics, however on the degree of tradition, it marks a dramatic milestone and an unimaginable shift.
Ali Motahari, who was a parliamentarian, was saying that we perceive that girls might not need to put on the veil, however our concern is the place will this lead? What’s subsequent? He’s one of many misogynist members throughout the authorities, and he’s saying, what are we going to have to simply accept subsequent? Are they going to put on quick sleeves? Are we going to see their ankles, their bellies, and so forth? And so, a part of their try at negotiation is to simply cease issues on the veil, at eliminating the veil, in order that it doesn’t go additional.
But a couple of years in the past, if a girl was strolling within the streets and not using a veil, she could be checked out askance, and also you’d really feel that the gaze was hostile. Whereas, now, within the aftermath of the Mahsa motion, you simply see how regular it has turn out to be for ladies to go outdoors and not using a veil and that the extent of public acceptance has dramatically shifted. In a way, there isn’t any turning again of the clock as a result of the cultural norms have shifted.
Spillar: Reza, I agree together with your evaluation {that a} shift in public opinion is awfully necessary, and with the general public on our aspect and the general public in your aspect, we are able to proceed to place stress for change among the many political leaders and within the legal guidelines. The first step is at all times overcoming public reluctance to stand up. It is the rising up of leaders like the 2 of you that can give braveness to others, and I feel it’s so critically necessary, the cultural and the social modifications—very a lot necessary to creating authorized and political modifications.
Khandan: I very a lot agree with you, Kathy. I used to be talking to a really expensive good friend of ours in regards to the public opinion level. Farhad’s one other one of many actually extraordinary civil rights activists in Iran, ladies’s rights activists and a really shut good friend. Farhad was saying that he, too, is astonished by the change within the system, the shifts, and that, actually, the political system, more and more, seems like froth on the prime of a effervescent cauldron, the persons are simply in a distinct place.
But what’s clear is that one of many kind of most hardly-kept positions of the system, which was this type of misogyny, hostility in the direction of ladies, particularly across the veil, they’re now pressured to digest the brand new actuality, and onerous as is it for them to do it, they’re doing it. So, you recognize, right here’s to public opinion, I assume, and the largest shifts within the universe.
All of us are always prone to sudden shifts within the political situations after which dramatic makes an attempt at reversal, taking the clock again in time.
Reza Khandan
Spillar: Reza and Nasrin, the more durable the pushback by the political forces, that simply reveals how sturdy we’re and what a risk we’re to their regimes. So, the more durable they push, we all know that we’re getting nearer. We simply hope you keep secure. We take into consideration you on a regular basis, and we hope you keep secure.
Nasrin, many people are in despair in regards to the state of the nation and the world. How do you discover hope in these instances?
Sotoudeh: The world has gone by way of darker days. I keep in mind vividly once I was a baby, I’d get up to the information of the Vietnam War and likewise the horrors of what was occurring in Cambodia underneath Pol Pot. We’ve made our manner ahead by way of these horrific and darkish occasions and instances, and so, why not once more? As lengthy as I’m alive, I’m simply naturally an optimist.
Khandan: We are so delighted to be with all of you and such a pleasure, in spite of everything this attempting for us to be collectively, and I look ahead to all that’s forward. Have a very good day for you, and we’ll have a very good night right here.
Thanks to Aastha Jani, who supplied editorial help for this piece.
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