The Life of Justice-Seeker Nahid Shirpisheh: Solitary Confinement in Prison

Nahid Shirpisheh was only a simple teacher. Then, on the evening of November 16, 2019, the second day of nationwide protests sparked by a steep rise in fuel prices, she and her daughter Mona and her son Pouya joined demonstrators in the streets. That’s where she witnessed the killing of her son by the security forces of the Islamic Republic.

A number of videos of Pouya Bakhtiari were recorded during the protests in which he gives voice to the people’s complaints, including one from November 16, shortly before he was shot in the head. “I am somebody’s son as well,” he says in the clip, a sentence that became a symbol of the 2019 protests.

After Pouya was killed, his mother and other members of his family sought justice. Despite harassment by security forces and repeated arrests, they also became a symbol for the justice-seeking families of those killed in November 2019.

Following Pouya’s death, security agents repeatedly raided Nahid Shirpisheh’s home, took away her mobile phone and eventually prohibited her from owning a smartphone. Finally, on July 11, 2022, Pouya Bakhtiari’s mother was arrested along with other families who were seeking justice for the loss of their loved ones after security forces.

At the time, quoting an “informed official,” Fars news agency, which is affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), wrote that “a number of agitators who claim to seek justice” were arrested at a gathering where they planned to “start riots.” Without naming the official, Fars claimed that the detainees “communicated with a person connected to foreign intelligence services.”

In September 2022, Branch 1 of Karaj Revolutionary Court sentenced Nahid Shirpisheh to five years in prison on charges of “gathering and collusion to act against national security” and “propaganda against the state.”

In the face of constant harassment, she said many times that by following Pouya’s ideals she believes she is a “good mother” who has not “betrayed his blood”.

Extrajudicial Punishment of Pouya’s Mother

On July 11, 2022, Nahid Shirpisheh was transferred to the ward housing “dangerous criminals” in Martyr Kachooei (Fardis) Prison in Karaj, near Tehran.

“Pouya’s mother was assaulted by a violent inmate in that ward,” Mahshid Nazemi, a human rights activist and former political prisoner, tells IranWire. “The prisoner grabbed her throat in a way that almost choked her to death, and the bruises on her neck were visible for quite a while.”

Keeping political prisoners next to violent criminals and exposing them to life-threatening dangers is a well-known practice in Iranian prisons.

While in Fardis Prison, Shirpisheh was denied the right of talking to her family or meeting them in prison. Later, when Shirpisheh was scheduled to be granted a medical leave of absence, they transferred her to a women’s prison in the city of Zanjan, pretending that they were taking her to hospital.

Ms. Shirpisheh was denied the most basic rights in Zanjan Prison as well. According to Mahshid Nazemi, after more than seven months in solitary confinement, she was transferred to the common ward, but even there she was the cellmate of “violent criminals.”

“When Pouya’s mother arrives at the common ward, one of the inmates asks her why she is incarcerated,” says Nazemi. “When Ms. Nahid explains that she is the mother of one of the protesters who was killed, that inmate, using the official lexicon of the government, calls the protesters ‘rioters,’ attacks Pouya’s mother and beats her.”

After this attack, Nahid Shirpisheh was forced to ask prison officials to be sent back to solitary confinement. “This was a victory for the government because not only the prisoner was returned to solitary confinement at her own request, but it also suggested to people that even prisoners are against protests and actions by the families who are seeking justice,” says Nazemi

Nahid Shirpisheh has been repeatedly harassed, threatened, arrested by security agencies, and she spent many months in solitary confinement. As a result, she is suffering from various physical and psychological ailments such as joint pain, panic attacks and abnormally high rate of heartbeat. In addition, she is still not allowed to talk to her relatives and the family is not allowed to visit her.

After a number of justice-seeking families had a suspicious accident while traveling from Karaj to Qazvin to attend the trial of Pouya’s father, Manouchehr Bakhtiari, and following the death of Sedigheh Tourani, the mother of Farhad Mojaddam who was fatally shot in the head by security forces in November 2019, Shirpisheh herself asked her family not to travel to Zanjan to visit her.

“Nahid Shirpisheh’s condition is horrifying,” says Mahshid Nazemi. “We are not asking for her release, but the least they can do is to take her out of solitary confinement and transfer her to the prison in Karaj, where all members of her family live. On what charge is she being kept in solitary confinement month after month? Nahid Shirpisheh, who lost her son in front of her eyes, is now suffering from various psychological ailments and depression. If we don’t do anything for her now, she would die a slow, painful death.”

“Ms. Shirpisheh has never been into politics. She has always been seeking justice. She stood up to seek justice for her son and all the others who were killed during the November 2019 protests, and this is what has enraged the government against her and the whole family of Pouya Bakhtiari.”

Besides Pouya’s parents, who are now both in prison, his sister Mona is being harassed by security forces. His uncle was given a five-year suspended prison sentence and banned from leaving the country. Other members of the family were repeatedly arrested as well. But the perseverance of the family in demanding the “right to seek justice” keeps the hope alive that justice-seekers for the victims of the Islamic Republic will not be silenced.