Nasrin Parvaz was imprisoned and tortured by the Iranian regime for protesting against it – now she fears that political prisoners are about to be massacred
Nasrin Parvaz, now 67 and based in the UK, spent almost seven years in Tehran’s Evin prison
In November 1982, Nasrin Parvaz planned to meet a friend and fellow activist in the Iranian capital, Tehran. She was shocked when her friend showed up at the meeting with an interrogator.
“I didn’t know he’d been arrested the day before,” Ms Parvaz, now 67 and based in Britain, told The i Paper. “He couldn’t take the torture, and named me. I was arrested.”
Ms Parvaz had been involved in demonstrations against the Iranian regime that had come to power following the revolution in 1979, bringing with it a fundamentalist and repressive interpretation of Shia Islam.
“The regime introduced misogynistic laws,” she said. “They said women had to cover their heads. Women did not have the right to divorce. Women had to have their husband’s permission to leave the country. Custody of children was the husband’s right. The law permitted men to kill their daughters and wives, and they went free.”
Ms Parvaz was taken to an interrogation centre for six months. “I was tortured because they wanted my contacts, and I wouldn’t give it to them,” she said. “My feet were lashed, so much so that I was paralysed for three weeks. The guards had to take me to the loo, and I couldn’t shower.”
She was transferred to Evin prison in Tehran, a notorious site holding thousands of prisoners, including hundreds of political dissidents, human rights activists, journalists and dual nationals. The prison, sitting on a hilltop surrounded by electrified barbed-wire fences, would become her home for most of the next seven years.
“Evin has a reputation of being a site of torture and oppression,” Nader Hashemi, director of the Alwaleed Centre for Muslim-Christian Understanding at the Edmund A Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University, told The i Paper. “Every major political dissident that has been arrested by the Islamic Republic of Iran has found themselves at Evin.”
Ms Parvaz was shown to a room meant to sleep five prisoners – instead, it housed 80 women and two children.
“I was beaten, but not like when I was at the interrogation centre,” she said. “I was put in solitary confinement, sometimes for months.”
She remembers becoming very ill in Evin with an unbearable pain in her stomach.
“I was at the point of dying,” she said. “I couldn’t eat anything and lost a dramatic amount of weight. They didn’t want to give me any treatment or medication, and said they would take me to hospital if I wrote my first confession – that I had made a mistake to struggle against the regime. I said I would not.”
One of her fellow prisoners was a doctor and treated her with small drops of honey water. “I stayed alive,” she said. “I was scared, but I never let them see my feelings. I had a strong face.”
Ms Parvaz was in Evin during the 1988 prison massacres in Iran, when thousands of political prisoners being held were executed.
“Every day, they were pressuring us to repent and say we were wrong,” she said, remembering the time of the massacre. “They took 50 prisoners from the wing I was in – they never came back.”
A couple of times, fellow inmates tried to take their own life, so she and other prisoners formed a team to stop them, “watching over them day and night”.
Two years after the massacres, Ms Parvaz was finally released from Evin, in the autumn of 1990.
“It was a happy moment,” she said. “But I soon found out that the country had become a prison.”
‘The regime is separating prisoners – this often precedes execution’
The attacks on Iran over the last two weeks have left Ms Parvaz more fearful than ever about the safety of prisoners in Evin and the rest of Iran.
Hashemi said: “History teaches us that when there is an external attack and the regime faces an existential crisis of survival, it uses this moment as an opportunity to get rid of its political rivals. In the context of Iran, the biggest prison massacre took place in 1988 in the final months of the Iran-Iraq war when Iran was facing a similar moment.”
This week, during its strike campaign on Iran, Israel struck Evin, damaging parts of the facility, prompting criticism for endangering the lives of the prisoners held there. According to Iran’s health ministry, about 600 Iranians have been killed in Israeli strikes this week, although one US-based human right group said the real toll was closer to 1,000.
“The Israeli attack makes it easier for the regime to execute prisoners,” Ms Parvaz said. “It has emerged that the regime has removed all non-political inmates from Evin prison. Historically this separation of prisoners has always meant that something dreadful is likely to happen. A number of political prisoners have also been removed from their wings in several prisons across the rest of Iran. This usually happens to prisoners before execution.”
In the past 10 days, at least six men have been executed on charges of espionage for Israel, with reports of at least nine others having been executed in prisons across Iran. Today Iran announced that three men had been hanged, charged with bringing “assassination equipment” into the country. At least six other defendants are on death row for charges of espionage for Israel and at risk of execution, according to theIran Human Rights non-profit group. At least 223 people have been arrested since the start of the conflict between Israel and Iran.
Ms Parvaz said the Israeli attack provides an excuse for the Iranian regime to carry out executions without being held accountable by the Iranian people.
“If the regime harms prisoners – those arrested now or who have been in prison – their blood will be on both the Iranian and Israeli regimes.”
While Iran’s prison authority has reportedly transferred prisoners out of Evin after the bombing, it is unclear how many were transferred, and where they were moved.
The women’s rights campaigner and Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi, who was held in the prison until being allowed temporary leave for medical reasons last year, declared: “Prisoners remain inside the wards under heightened security conditions or are being transferred. Injured prisoners have no place for transfer or treatment and are not being moved to hospitals outside the prison due to the war-like conditions. Some prisoners have not yet spoken with their families. When prisoners are transferred under these conditions, we will not have precise information about them.”
While Hashemi is worried about prisoners, he’s also concerned about further repression and arrests of Iranians by the regime.
“I think Iran is clearing space for a massive crackdown in society,” he said, speaking of the prisoner transfers from Evin. “Now there is a ceasefire in place, Iran is going to start engaging in further state repression, using the argument that there’s a national security crisis – that the country is filled with Israeli spies. It’s going to try and arrest anyone it can to tighten control over society.”
Ms Parvaz agreed: “The regime is weaker. It’s like a wounded animal that is trying to restore its life. Because of that, it is likely it will retaliate on people – arresting and killing them.”
However, Ms Parvaz emphasised that overthrowing the regime must come from the Iranian people themselves, not Israeli or American bombs.
I was tortured for eight years in Iran’s notorious Evin Prison – the UK must not turn its back on survivors like me
When I heard about the recent airstrikes on Evin prison, my heart broke.
I can’t stop thinking about my fellow prisoners. People held in Evin have already suffered so much, and now this. For those of us who’ve been imprisoned, moments like this bring all the painful memories flooding back. All I can see are the faces of friends lost to executions.
For all of us – those still inside Iran or living in exile – these attacks are nothing short of psychological torture. Families wait in agony for news. Survivors like me relive their worst nightmares.
It’s been more than thirty years since I was imprisoned, but I remember it like it happened yesterday. I was held for eight years, threatened with sexual violence. And tortured. My ‘crime’? Speaking out against human rights abuses, state executions and women’s inequality. For this they called me a spy.
When I fled for my life, I left everything behind – my family, my friends, my home. Arriving in the UK, I had nothing. I felt so lost and alone. But I was lucky. I escaped. I’ve been able to heal, to rebuild, to find my voice again.
Now, I use my voice through writing, art, and activism. These are powerful tools for survivors like me. Sharing my story means I can raise awareness of the horrors still happening in Iran. Being able to do this has helped give my life meaning after everything I lost.
This year, on the United Nations International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, I stood with Freedom from Torture to unveil billboards across London, amplifying survivors’ voices. As conflict and repression escalate around the world, we’re calling for renewed public support to end torture.
My words now stand tall in Shadwell, East London: “I spoke out against executions in my country. I was tortured for it.” I am one of the lucky ones. I can stand here today and speak proudly and freely. But my heart aches for those still silenced, those being tortured for the simple act of standing up for what’s right.
The torturers tried to take my voice. But through therapy, writing and art, I reclaimed it. And now, our words are displayed for all to see. People need to understand why survivors like me are targeted: for standing up for basic rights, for falling in love, for dreaming of equality or just wanting to exist peacefully.
We’re asking the British public to stand with us – to welcome us as neighbours, as survivors, as people rebuilding our lives in safety. At this critical moment, when the UK Government threatens to weaken vital protections for survivors, we urge the country to stand firm: the absolute ban on torture must be upheld, with no exceptions. I believe the British people will choose compassion over cruelty. We need to remember that silence only helps the torturers, so together we must be louder.
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Nasrin Parvaz became a civil rights activist when the Islamic regime took power in 1979. She was arrested in 1982, tortured and imprisoned for eight years. Parvaz is the author of One Woman’s Struggle in Iran: A Prison Memoir and The Secret Letters from X to A.
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