Nasrin Roshan was released from Evin prison in Tehran determined to use her freedom to speak about the hundreds of women languishing there.
The 62 year old from London was jailed for four years and eight months in November 2023 on her way out of Iran. The pretext for her arrest was that she had attended annual commemorations in Cairo for the late Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in July 2023.
After her health declined rapidly in prison, and thanks to extensive legal efforts by her family, she was released in May having served 17 months of that sentence. Soon after, the war between Iran and Israel broke out and she fled Tehran over land to Turkey, before flying back home.
This was Roshan’s second time in Iran’s prisons: in 1982, aged 18, she was sentenced to four years at Ghezel Hesar, where she was regularly beaten and tortured. The younger generation of women she met in Evin were defiant and rebellious, she told The National, and this gives her hope.
But with many of them facing execution or a lifetime in exile, they also need help. “This generation is changing,” she said. “The government couldn’t torture people like that any more. They couldn't control the young people. That is the big difference.”
Survivor’s guilt
Roshan’s polished presence and well-cut outfit combine with a warm smile and confident posture to give the impression that she is ready to move on from her 18 months in prison.
Less than a month after her return in July, she and her husband went back to Cairo to take part in an annual event that commemorates the late Shah. It is a high-profile memorial that is permitted in defiance of the Iranian authorities - but her arrest suggests that the regime keeps a watchful eye on it. “I will keep going again for the rest of my life,” she said.
She spoke at a protest in London this month marking three years since a popular uprising was triggered by the death in detention of the 22-year-old activist Mahsa Amini. Her husband, a London taxi driver, drove her from the north-eastern suburbs of the city for the interview, and she had plans to see her daughter in west London.
But her perseverance conceals a deep trauma that has haunted her entire adult life. She developed a heart problem while in prison, and suffered two blackouts before her release. Her knees still ache from arthritis, which went untreated for more than a year, and she struggles to walk or sit down.
Her 22-year old niece Sara, who was arrested with her after their fateful trip to Cairo, died last year in unexplained circumstances. Hours before she died, Sara had told relatives of the extreme pressure she'd faced from interrogators. And finally, Roshan is wracked with guilt when she thinks of the women she left behind in Evin.
New generation of political prisoners
Hundreds of women have been jailed for taking part in the Women, Life, Freedom demonstrations triggered by Amini's death. Roshan befriended many of them in Evin, recalling fondly how she cooked for them on Fridays.
“They were like my daughters. I loved them, I had a very, very good relationship with them,” she said. “We had a big, powerful community together. The officers were so scared of the ladies in Evin,” she said.
There was Pakhshan Azizi, 41, and Verisheh Moradi, 40, two Iranian Kurds who were detained in August 2023 and are now on death row. “The women were so strong,” she said. Nasim Simiyari, 36, faced a death sentence for more than a year and a half before it was reduced to six years in prison followed by 20 years in exile in Anguran, in Zanjan province. “She was fantastic,” Roshan recalled.
While in solitary confinement, Roshan could hear one woman shouting for a whole day and night, demanding to speak to her mother. “They beat her with a chain. She was still shouting. They couldn’t stop her,” she recalled.
Roshan finally met the woman in the general prison ward months later. “She was 18, she was a baby,” she said. Roshan says she would sit on her mother’s lap during family visits.
Yet the women – emboldened by the revolution that had taken place in the months before their incarceration – were so defiant that the prison guards were sometimes unable to assert control of the prison. There were regular demonstrations and protests inside – including a night spent outdoors in September 2024 to mark Mahsa’s death. Those who took part were punished.
“When we were together, we weren’t scared of anything. The officers said 'you can’t see your family'. I said 'who cares?'. They threatened 'we won’t let you have phone calls', I said 'who cares?'. That’s why they couldn't do anything to us,” she said.
Roshan believes the authorities had become “scared” of negative publicity leaking from its jails. Through lawyers and family visits, the women were able to put out statements about their treatment in prison. “We send the letter to the outside, and everybody knows what happened to us,” she said.
It is a major signal to Roshan that the regime is living out its final days – as long as those calling for democracy get better support. But she is also concerned about the growing apathy she noticed among Iranians in Tehran. “My people are so numb. The government does nothing for them. No electricity, no food, no money, they just kill them,” she said. “But the people don't do anything. They didn't go to the street. They are scared."
Roshan often thinks of her fellow prisoner Someyeh Rashidi, who died this year from an untreated epileptic fit. “The prison authorities did nothing to help her dire condition, they accused her of faking it,” she said. She recalled seeing Rashidi in the exercise yard, “her face full of sorrow, as she watched the life she had lost”.
Roshan's depression and arthritis went untreated in prison, and after she began experiencing blackouts, the prison director described the episodes as attempted suicides. “I told them I had not attempted suicide, I had no reason to – but they tried by force to impose the idea,” she said.
Surviving the terror
Roshan first went to prison three years after the Islamic revolution of 1979. She had begun to question whether the revolution had really brought about the change they wanted. Her high school teachers reported her.
These were the years of the terror, when the Islamic Republic sought to consolidate its grip. "The Shah's fall had been quicker than expected, and the new regime's power was insecure. They became ruthless, out of hatred for anyone who disagreed with them, but also insecurity," said Houchang Chehabi, Professor of International Relations and History at Boston University.
Roshan recalled how people around her had started disappearing, until her turn came.
The prison was Ghezel Hsar - which today is one of Iran's foremost execution sites. For five months she was detained in a large hall with other women during the day, made to sit up on their knees blindfolded and facing the wall. “We couldn’t talk, we couldn’t move,” she said.
The practice ended when religious leader Ayatollah Ali-Hussein Montazeri, the designated heir to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeni, criticised the regime's human rights abuses.
Yet Roshan recalled being tortured with electric wires tied to her legs, and made to walk on her knees leaving her with lifelong pain.
Montazeri's title was eventually withdrawn in 1989 and he was later placed under house arrest, but the years of terror also subsided. "Between 1989 and 2005, the regime liberalised, legality became better entrenched and you had more of a state of law," Prof Chehabi said.
UK should 'carry the voices' of Iranian prisoners
When Roshan was detained at Imam Khomeini Airport in November 2023, interrogators showed her a picture of herself in Cairo with the late Shah’s wife, Queen Farah Pahlavi. It was her first time attending the commemorations, and she became emotional when she met the last Queen of Iran. “I told her: 'I’m sorry that we revolted against you,'” she said.
Supporters of the Shah are a vocal minority among the Iranian opposition abroad. Many feel a nostalgia for the years preceding the 1979 revolution – but this version of history divides Iranians.
The US-based Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi has built a following of his own, though his support for Israel in its fight against the Iranian Revolution Guard Corps has alienated him from other opposition groups including many in his own base.
Western governments are equally divided on the Iranian issue, with some calling for proscription and tougher measures and some saying diplomatic channels are necessary to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
There are currently three British nationals detained in Iran's prisons, including the couple Lindsay and Craig Foreman, who were accused of espionage while on a biking holiday in the country. A French cyclist was released last week.
Turning to her homeland, Roshan said the UK needed to be tougher on Iran and more vocal in its support for the opposition and political prisoners. “Don’t just talk. Carry the voices of political prisoners and innocent detainees to the world,” she said.
The UK, France and Germany announced they would bring back sanctions on Iran this month after negotiations to end Tehran’s nuclear programme failed. Yet successive UK governments have rejected calls to proscribe the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, fearing this could sever diplomatic channels needed for negotiations as well as for the release of hostages.
Last year, the MI5 chief Ken McCallum said the agency had responded to 20 Iran-backed plots in the UK. Roshan supports a proscription and believes that the current sanctions regime is insufficient.
She is also disappointed with the lack of support she said she and her family received from the UK government during her detention. As a dual national, the Iranian regime considered her an Iranian citizen and barred British diplomats from visiting her. Her husband spent “hours and days” chasing the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office for information.
She will go back to Iran as soon as the regime falls, she said. She misses her own family home in Shahriyar, on the outskirts of Tehran. “We had a big garden with grapes, lots of fruit, we would have picnics there,” she said. She also misses Sara and her family.
