Narges Mohammadi, the Iranian human rights activist who won the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize, is currently serving a 12-year sentence in Tehran's Evin prison. She has always been a source of inspiration for her fellow inmates: She is intelligent, determined and lively, even in her darkest moments. To mark the release of her book White Torture in France, Le Monde sent Mohammadi questions via an underground network of activists. We received her answers two weeks later. Here they are.

I've been in solitary confinement four times. I consider the practice of "white torture," in other words incarceration in solitary confinement by the government, to be unjust and brutal. The solitary confinement cell is the "mother" of all executions in Iran. In the course of my work on human rights and against the death penalty, I have learned that many of those executed, subjected to the physical, mental and psychic torture of incarceration in solitary confinement, give false confessions, which then form the basis, illegally, of their death sentence.

White torture is unknown to Iranian society and many human rights groups, yet for authoritarian and oppressive governments such as the Iranian regime, it is a means of pressure against opponents. They use it extensively since this kind of torture leaves no visible traces. Many victims of solitary confinement are unaware that it is a frightening and inhumane form of torture. Documenting it is a step towards justice, the abolition of torture, the death penalty and coerced, false confessions, as well as an attempt to limit the means of oppression against activists and opponents.

Pressure from the security services and judicial authorities has increased. Since November 29, I have been deprived of telephone calls and visits. This ban has just been extended because of the letter I recently sent to Antonio Guterres, the secretary general of the United Nations, asking him to criminalize gender apartheid. To date, I haven't even been able to hear from my family the account of the Nobel Prize ceremony [on December 10, 2023, in Oslo]. After I received this prize, in January the Revolutionary Court pronounced a new sentence against me, in my absence.

The support of international institutions for democratic movements, human rights defenders and civil society currents is one of the most effective ways of strengthening the democratic process in Iran. There is clear opposition between the Iranian people and the theocratic, autocratic and misogynist regime of the Islamic Republic, because Iranians seek to establish democracy. Any support from international institutions strengthens the opposition movements in their efforts to combat this totalitarian regime.

You have 64.96% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.