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“I don’t think
it’s anticipated that drawing cartoons or writing poems would get you 15 to 20
years in prison”
Atena
Farghadani told advocates she was beaten, held in solitary confinement,
verbally abused and forced to strip naked by prison guards. (AtenaFarghadani/Facebook)
Twenty-eight
year-old Atena Farghadani felt a sense of outrage when her government, the conservative
legislators of Iran, tried to criminalize voluntary sterilization in 2014. It
was the latest move to restrict women’s reproductive choices, and Farghadani, a
talented painter and budding activist, decided to speak out.
Farghadani
drew a cartoon depicting legislators who supported the bill as monkeys and cows
and posted it to Facebook. Shortly after her post, the Revolutionary Guard
showed up at Farghadani’s doorstep, searched her home, arrested her, and
charged her with insulting the government, disseminating propaganda, and
colluding against national security. They alleged that her meetings with the
families of political prisoners constituted a crime in itself, and quickly made
her a political prisoner, too.
Farghadani
has told advocates that she has been beaten, held in solitary confinement,
verbally abused, forced to strip naked, and forced to undergo virginity and
pregnancy tests by the prison guards, according to advocates and experts with
Movements.org, a human rights organization that helps digitally connect
activists in closed societies and has been compiling stories of political
prisoners like Farghadani.
Farghadani,
who appeared in a YouTube video criticizing her arrest in 2014 and was
subsequently re-arrested, for “illegitimate sexual relationship short of
adultery” and indecency charges after shaking hands with her lawyer, also
posted an open letter to Facebook addressed to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei in 2015, criticizing the Revolutionary Guard for her maltreatment.
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