Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi wrote an open letter to UN officials calling for the release of political prisoners and an end to the repression of women and civil society in Iran.
Human rights activist Narges Mohammadi, imprisoned in Iran, sent a letter to the 79th UN General Assembly on the escalating rights violations in Iran.
The 52-year-old human rights activist, winner of the 2023 Nobel Prize, has been in prison since November 2021. Narges Mohammadi has spent most of the last decade in prison.
The open letter addressed to the Secretary General of the United Nations Antonio Guterres and members of the UN General Assembly, which was published by Le Monde, reads as follows:
“Mr. Secretary General of the United Nations Antonio Guterres, esteemed members of the UN General Assembly, two years have passed since the start of the ‘Jin, Jiyan, Azadi’ (Woman, Life, Freedom) movement. A civil society movement that has spread throughout Iran. It is a democratic movement whose demands were expressed by the slogan ‘Jin, Jiyan, Azadi’ which carried a clear call for democracy and equality in Iran.
As with previous popular uprisings and social movements, the price paid for the active support shown by all sections of the Iranian population, who rose up in solidarity, was brutal repression, which continues to this day.
The world is witnessing the massacres, executions, imprisonments and violent, ruthless repression of women in Iran's streets, detention centers and prisons.
We have been extremely worried in recent days, with several women being condemned to death, including Pakhshan Azizi [Kurdish women's rights activist] and Sharifeh Mohammadi [labor activist].
Ladies and gentlemen, representatives of the Iranian government will be among you at the United Nations General Assembly session.
I ask you to urgently call for respect for human rights as a precondition for all negotiations, whatever the level, as it is the only possible way to achieve democracy and peace in the Middle East and Iran.
It's time for action, and I'm asking you to replace words with concrete, effective measures.
I urge you to act forcefully and immediately to:
- stop the cruel and inhumane mass executions of prisoners sentenced to death in Iran.
- obtain the release of all arbitrarily arrested, detained and convicted political prisoners and prisoners of conscience.
- end the systematic and targeted repression of Iranian women and criminalize gender apartheid at the international level.
- stop the repression of independent civil society organizations.
