Survivors of the regime like me are reliving our nightmares as brave Iranians fight for their freedom. They say they have nothing to lose but their chains

It has been more than 40 years since I was imprisoned in Iran for speaking out against human rights abuses and state executions, and for defending women’s rights. I spent eight years behind bars in Iran’s notorious Evin prison. I was tortured. I remember it as if it happened yesterday.

Every few years, uprisings erupt across Iran – and each wave of resistance is deeper and more widespread than the one before. In 2022, it was women who led the Woman, Life, Freedom movement after the murder of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini by the country’s “morality police”, and it revolutionised my country. Today, women wear what they want, go out in public with their boyfriends – even live with them – without fear of being arrested. Women earned these rights with their lives. In late December 2025, the spark was once again lit – this time in an old bazaar in Tehran.

Nasrin Parvaz is a women’s rights activist and torture survivor from Iran. Her books include A Prison Memoir: One Woman’s Struggle in Iran, and the novel The Secret Letters from X to A

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