Episode 43: Iran Update
Disobedient Women
Amy is joined by activists from I-WILL, a group dedicated to sharing the stories of Iranian women living under a patriarchal regime. These courageous women let us know how the situation in Iran has developed since the Women Life Freedom movement began, tell us about the incredible ways everyday women are resisting oppression, and let us know what listeners can do to help.
Our Guests
Iranian Women’s Institute for Life and Liberty
Inspired by the “Woman Life Freedom” uprising which started in Iran against the Islamic Republic regime in September of 2022 following the brutal killing of an innocent Kurdish Iranian girl, Mahsa Jina Amini by government agents, the Iranian Women Institute for Life and Liberty (I-WILL) seeks to provide a platform to raise awareness about, and support, women who have been victims of gender apartheid and discrimination. Through advocacy, education, and community engagement, we aspire to foster a society where immigrant women are empowered to contribute fully, enriching the fabric of our global community with their strength and resilience.
We're honored to be joined by I-WILL activists Saghi Saghazadeh, Naseem Ghazanfari, Reina Rezaei, and Kelly O'Leary.
Amy Allebest: When I think of women's courage and resilience in the face of violent patriarchy, the image that comes to my mind is the Woman, Life, Freedom movement that took Iran by storm starting in September, 2022. People around the world watched in awe as Iranian women and their allies risked their lives as they spoke out against their patriarchal government. In the years since, I've often wondered how the situation in Iran has developed and how women are continuing to speak out. I was thrilled to hear from my friend Saghi Saghazadeh, who is a member of a group called IWIN, or Iranian Women in Network, whose mission is empowering women through art. She's also a member of I-WILL, which is a group that helps women share their stories. As they say at I-WILL, when a woman speaks, silence turns into resistance. I met with Saghi and some of her colleagues to hear about their incredibly inspiring ongoing work. Please enjoy our conversation.
Welcome, everyone! I'm so, so excited and honored to have you on Breaking Down Patriarchy today. I wonder if we can start off the episode by having you each introduce yourselves by telling listeners who you are, your name, where you're from, and a little bit about the work you do and what's brought you to do the work that you're doing today.
Saghi Saghazadeh: Okay, I guess I'm going to start. My name is Saghi Saghazadeh. I was born and raised in Tehran, Iran. I was born during the war of Iran-Iraq, and I was raised in a middle-upper-class family in Iran, so I think I had a lot of privileges that a lot of people the same age as me did not have, probably. I studied at one of the pretty well-known universities in Iran, Tehran Polytechnic, and then I went to Europe to study for my master's and PhD in biotechnology and material sciences, and then I came to the United States for a job. I lived for a few years in Boston, and now I live in Minnesota. And I think in the sense of activism, I have been trying to do my best when it comes to women's rights, children's rights, and also I have been spending some resources for animal rights. It is very close to my heart, and there are a lot of different instances that happen across the world and I can relate because I have either seen stuff or heard stories of similar situations that inflict pain on people. So, a lot of times when I see some harm being done to specific people, it feels very close. It ignites some trauma. And I try to use whatever privilege I have to help to improve and also for myself to learn. And that is me. Naseem, do you want to go?
Naseem Ghazanfari: Sure. You actually inspired me to add a few things that I didn't plan to, but yes, my name is Naseem. I'm honored to be here, Amy, and I’m truly grateful for you to give us this opportunity. I am a 46-year-old Iranian woman. I was born in 1979, just a few months after the Islamic Revolution happened in Iran. And I'm here in Seattle, Washington. I'm a physician, a cardiologist, and I'm also a mom and a cat's grandma. I never considered myself an activist, although looking back, living in those countries, you've been an activist all your life and you just didn't know it at all. I was inspired, really, and started my activism after the Woman, Life, Freedom uprising in September of 2022. And it was an awakening moment for me, just like for many of us, seeing our young children on the street. And though that was the time that, as Saghi said, we felt like we needed to use our privileges here to try to amplify their voices. And since then I have been dedicating a great portion of my time to speaking out against a lot of those atrocities happening both in Iran and in other countries. I started working with Ukrainian activists, for example, and learned a lot through this process. That's a short version, and I'll pass it on to Kelly.
Kelly O’Leary: Hello, my name is Kelly O'Leary. I'm also very excited to be here. Amy, I haven't mentioned yet, but I've actually been a fan of the podcast for a couple years, so I'm a listener. So when Saghi said, “Amy, she has this podcast,” I was like, “Wait, what?” So I was very excited to be on. I grew up in Montana, where I learned to appreciate wild places. I love nature. I studied zoology in college and I minored in religious studies, which was a lot of fun and confused everyone in my classes. My science friends didn't know why I studied religion, my religion friends didn't know why I studied science, but it was a great combo in my eyes. After I graduated from high school, I worked as a dog trainer in an animal shelter. Dog training is a big passion of mine. Animal behavior is a big passion of mine, but I ended up going back to school and got a teaching credential and I taught high school science for six years, biology, chemistry, and environmental science. My first year teaching was 2017, so you can imagine the beginning of a very interesting political era in the United States, so it was interesting to be teaching science during that time period. During the pandemic, I started making audio and video lessons for my students, and I developed a love of audio production and editing. And my husband and I, we were both teachers, and we both left teaching to create an audio storytelling and podcasting business, so that's what I'm doing right now. I live outside Seattle, across the Sound in a small town. It's easy to get into the city, and that's how I ended up getting involved with I-WILL. I met Naseem just on the street. I think we'll talk about this more later, but yeah, we bumped into each other during a protest in 2022. And ever since then I've been involved in this fight. With activism, I've been an environmental activist for a long time, and so bringing that passion to this fight as well. And Reina.
Reina Rezaei: My name is Reina. I've been an activist for about 15 years plus. I've been in Canada for about 22 years. I came to Canada through my ex-husband, who was Canadian, Iranian-Canadian, and my marriage was an arranged marriage. I came to Canada, and after four years I had to kind of run from him because I suffered from a lot of domestic violence through him and eventually he decided he wanted to end my life. Then that's how I got involved with the victim services and got out of that abusive relationship. And then I moved to Toronto. And since I moved to Canada, I've noticed that a lot of Indigenous women and girls are going missing. I was very close to the house of Robert Pickton, and it was happening at the time I came here. If you know anything about Pickton, Pickton used to pick up women in Vancouver from an area and eventually kill them. So that's how I got involved with the Indigenous people. I met a lot of Indigenous families there, so I got involved and I was helping out with Indigenous women and missing women and poor Indigenous people. So I got involved and I did a lot of volunteering with them. And then after I got separated from my ex-husband, I helped within the shelter for domestic violence, for women that have been through domestic violence, so I volunteered there a lot.
As I moved around, I was able to help with the youth, and I had a son at that time. So my son was growing up and I wanted to teach him how to be a good man and how to respect women. And so we started volunteering together when he was about seven or eight years old in the youth centers, just to see how the world is happening, what's going on around us. Eventually I moved to Toronto, and since then I've been an advocate for LGBTQIA people as well. I've been advocating for them as well as any minorities as well. I take courses to study about all these different situations, how to assist people, how to be a better advocate for them, how to advocate for them correctly. So I've been studying, I've been taking courses. After I got divorced, I moved to Toronto. I went to study hotel management, so I worked in hotels as a manager for many years until I got a job at the University of Western Ontario, so I moved to London, Ontario, and now I work there. Through Western I do take courses just to broaden my knowledge about what's happening in the world and learn about everything that is happening.
In 2020, to when Mahsa Jina Amini happened, I've always been behind the scenes. When I saw that so many people are misinforming the world about how Iranian people are and what's happening, I decided to actually open the camera and start making videos. I started within TikTok and after about a year and a half I grew my TikToks to 10,000 followers just to talk about what's happening and making sure that the news of what's happening in Iran is getting out. And then after that I moved to Instagram and I've been advocating that way. So my focus the last two and a half to three years has been mostly on my Iranian people and I've been advocating for them on Twitter. That's when I met Naseem, and she's been helping Elham Modaressi, who was a political prisoner in Iran who actually had liver failure through being in prison. So that's how me and Naseem got talking, we started advocating and getting her to a hospital here in Canada, where I work close to my university. And with the help of other people here in Canada, we were able to bring her to Canada, her and her mom, and recently we brought her sister here as well. That's basically about me.
AA: Thank you. Thanks, everyone, for those introductions. I'm so inspired already by your stories, and I'm really excited to get into more of the work that I-WILL does. But before that, the reason that we're even having this conversation today is because I met Saghi a couple of years ago, she's been on the podcast already, and I wanted to follow up since we left off in that conversation with Saghi. When we talked, the Woman, Life, Freedom movement in Iran was just beginning, it was beginning to gain momentum, and I've wondered many times as that story has kind of fallen out of the news and other things have hit the headlines more in recent years, I've wondered what's been happening in Iran. Could someone bring listeners up to speed about what's been happening in Iran between then and now?
SS: Yeah, a lot. A lot has happened. It's very multifaceted, and a lot of progress has happened in different areas, and also a lot of dark points have been exposed. And the whole Iranian community, both inside the country and outside, had to reckon with a lot of thoughts and beliefs and also the way that we approach our lives. I'm just going to give a short idea about how I was raised and then I'm going to tell you about a lot of stuff that has happened. Something that went on a lot of times in my family was to have a small, secure space for yourself, stay there and do not go further, because you are going to be powerless and there are powers bigger than you, and there isn't anything that you can do. So it was a very much learned helplessness that was introduced to me, very rightfully because we did not live in a lala land. I think my parents really wanted me to be safe more than anything else. And I think something that a lot of people around me or people who had the same kind of privileges or had the same path in life we had was, “Okay, my corner is safe, and the most I can do is to read the news and give a thumbs up or like or share, and that is the max I'm going to do, because further than that is dangerous.” I think that is something that has been significantly shattered, I would say.
But as of stuff that has happened inside Iran, so many changes have happened and it's massive, immense, and it's really to the credit of the Iranian women, men, girls, boys, elderly, young, so much has changed, and it's really thanks to their bravery and also their willingness to move past the regime that exists and go towards a better future. Iranian women now do daily civil disobedience. They would not wear hijab, and it's not like it is safe. There are pictures that might come out of Iran that show people with their scarves around their necks, or it is in their bag, or maybe you don't have it. It might look like, “Oh, they're free,” but that is not the case. At any time, you can get arrested, and actually people do get arrested for that. And also people are more vocal about cases when they get arrested. For example, there is this girl, her name is Roya Heshmati and she was flogged, she received lashes for not wearing a hijab. And actually she wrote the description of the day that she had to go to the court to receive the lashes, and actually she decided to not wear a hijab going to the Islamic Republic court. And obviously over there she was constantly asked, demanded, forced to wear a hijab. And her point of view was, “I'm here to receive lashes, I'm not going to wear this.” Ultimately, she was handcuffed behind her back and they put something on her head. But now that these stories are being told, people feel braver and also more emboldened to follow through with the daily civil disobedience.
There is a lot of more singing performed by Iranian women. After the Revolution, women were not allowed to sing and you would not hear a solo woman. They can sing in a choir in a group, but you would not hear anyone solo. And there is this girl, her name is Parastoo Ahmadi, and she did a wonderful performance, recorded it, put it on YouTube, and YouTube is banned in Iran, and she called it an imaginary concert. She explained it as, “I would like to imagine a better life. And after Woman, Life, Freedom, I'm wondering how that imaginary life would be, and let's call this an imaginary concert.” And she performed some beloved songs of Iranian culture, and a lot of people watched it, and obviously she was arrested afterwards and her court proceedings went. There are a lot of street singers. There is another girl, her name is Zara Esmaeili, and she was arrested as well. She started singing in a metro station, and I feel like her voice sometimes is very much like the unfortunately passed away Iranian singer Hayedeh. So, girls are running the whole thing.
“their bravery and also their willingness to move past the regime that exists and go towards a better future”
Also, girls in sports do participate in international events and they're not wearing the hijab. For example, we have Elnaz Rekabi in rock climbing, we have Sarasadat Khademalsharieh in chess, and Niloufar Mardani in skating. And either when they are doing sport or also when they are receiving the award, they're not wearing a hijab, and then they will face the consequences. It's not like, “I'm going to dodge it,” they are willing to look in the face of the regime and say, “I'm going to do what I want.” And kudos to them. I mean, I don't know if I was that brave. I wish I was, I wish I can be. But for me it is really inspiring. And now the regime has really escalated the aggression.
We have the highest number of executions per capita. I think China has the highest count, but Iran has the highest per capita. And just in the first four months of 2025, by the end of April, there have been 343 executions. And this is a 75% increase compared to 2024, which was 195 people in four months. And just in the month of May, 113 people were executed in the first 25 days of May. It is insane. And I just looked at the numbers from Amnesty International, and in 2021 we had 576 people, in 2022, 582 people, in 2023, 853 people. Since 2022, which was the Woman, Life, Freedom movement, since the killing of Mahsa Amini at the hand of the Iranian police, the numbers have skyrocketed. And the regime has been pretty bold in executing people who have been participating in the protests. There are different activists or beloved people who just voice their opinion, and then you see how they are jailed and what kind of sham of a trial is performed. And then they do get executed and it really breaks the hearts of Iranian people. I think the regime is doing absolutely anything they can to reaffirm that kind of learned helplessness, I believe.
And because of a lot of these atrocities that happened, there was a United Nations independent international fact-finding machine. That started in September, 2022, and ultimately they reaffirmed that the Iranian government has committed gross human rights violations, many of which amount to crimes against humanity, during and after the protest. And that includes torture, rape, killings, shooting people in the eyes. If you search, you'll see a lot of Iranian activists who have lost one eye. That's one of the methods that the regime will use not only to oppress you and hurt you very significantly for the rest of your life, but also you are identifiable now. It’s not a beating or a bruise underneath, you are very visible, a walking testament of what has happened. And they have no shame. They have absolutely no problem hurting people. The international community and organizations and associations have talked about it, but it hasn't gone further than that. Another thing that the regime has been doing to silence people is to put pressure on the family members of the victims. So they would execute someone and they would not give the body back. And it is maddening because culturally, and also due to our religion, et cetera, there are stories of imams or whatever figure that did not have the body of their deceased in whatever war, and this is exactly what they are doing. And people are really fed up. People really see the amount of hypocrisy and the kind of sham that the regime has been displaying. The regime would very much televise the courts and also how prisoners have been forced to testify. So you would see that, and now people very much know that this is given under pressure. The court hearings are 15 minutes, and at the end of it they give the death sentence and they do not have representation, they do not have an attorney present. So it is getting very visible.
At the same time, the regime is very bold because they have this belief of “if we take one step back, then people know that they can push.” So I would say it’s kind of like USSR Stalin time, but religious and firm. So it's going to resist until the time that it falls into shambles. But now the families of the victims have become the pillars of resistance. So they're banding together, they are now creating groups that not only raise awareness, but are active and pretty dynamic. So they stand against the operation and historical distortion, actually. And despite the threats, the arrests, imprisonment, exile, and the relentless pressure, these families have become the voice of truth. And they keep the light on, they keep talking about their loved ones, and that has been our north star in a way, like the father of Mashallah Karami, the family of Farzad Moazzami. They're very inspiring, seeing again how brave they are and how strongly they stand together. And due to the high number of death penalties, there is this new movement of saying no to the death penalty initiated by the people who are or were in prison. I think it's almost been 82 weeks, it started in 2024, and they started going on hunger strikes every Tuesday. The idea is to keep focus on “say no to executions” or “Tuesdays of no to execution”. And this has gained some attention by people across the world. That has been something that was initiated by the Iranians who are inside the country and has gotten some momentum.
Another thing that has started outside of Iran is the campaign for ending the gender apartheid. The campaign is titled End Gender Apartheid, and the whole idea started by Iranian-Afghan activists. The goal is for the United Nations to recognize gender apartheid as a crime, and they want different countries to codify it. And that would make such an impact in a lot, a lot of countries. And actually that's why there was a hearing about it and there are some countries that are firmly against it, because once you codify this, then you have to look at yourself and see what you are doing to your women. I would say the Woman, Life, Freedom movement revolution in 2022 resulted in a lot of Iranians outside of Iran having a look at ourselves and kind of reckoning and being awakened that we haven't been active for a very long time. We lack organizations. We lack grassroots organizations that we can come together and go talk to a congress member, talk to a senate member, talk to the mayor, et cetera. So it was a moment of reckoning and a lot of different small groups started forming and taking place. I think a lot of Iranians now know how to form an NGO and how to fight for it. Something that we can see from the Iranians outside is different groups now being active, and I think Naseem can tell you about how she took on that and how she led forward with it.
AA: Thank you for all of that. That's so, so fascinating and really heartening and inspiring. I have a question for you, but I think I'm going to ask it now and then have people answer it at the end, because we always end episodes this season with kind of a call to action for listeners. One thing that came up for me as you were talking, Saghi, is I was wondering if there's anything that the non-Iranian international community has done to help and what can still be done to support Iranian women. And specifically, I was wondering if international pressure does make a difference. You talked about that a little bit with the End Gender Apartheid international campaign, that maybe the government can be almost shamed enough and if enough countries shine a light on that, that maybe that makes a difference. So maybe if everyone can think about that for a second, we'll put a pin in it for now, but talk about it at the end so that listeners who don't necessarily have a tie to Iran but want to support can know how to do that. In the meantime, we'll move on to our next question, and that is to broaden and talk about the work of I-WILL. For listeners, it's the words I Will, I-WILL. I'm wondering who started this organization, what is this organization, and what is its purpose?
SS: That’s Naseem. Go ahead, Naseem.
NG: Thank you, Saghi. Thanks, Amy, for asking that question. Yes, this is Naseem. I can go on and on and tell you about the inspiration for I-WILL, but let me take you back to how the idea started, because since then it really evolved. So definitely the idea was started within a few days of the protest happening outside Iran, as there were hundreds of people in some cities, thousands of people chanting, some in Farsi, some in English. If they were in Europe then in their local languages. In my own city, as I was just watching our crowd, passionate, crying, just putting their heart and soul into those slogans and shouting to say what is happening, I would also observe people going around the protest, looking with a question mark, trying to figure out what is this about? And even when people were chanting in English, they still couldn't understand what it was about, exactly. What is the background, you know? I felt like there was a lot of energy there, but there's a big disconnect. And imagine September, 2022, it was also the time of the US midterm election, which was a very sensitive election time. Sometimes as we were saying, “US, do something”, then people thought, “Okay, this is a rally for one of the parties.” I remember one time this sweet, sweet old gentleman came and said, “Is this about abortion rights?” Because everything was women, right? I'm like, “Oh, this is so wrong. We need to do better than that.”
So part of it was trying, as Saghi mentioned earlier, to bridge the gap between the American grassroots activism and also people who hold office to tell about our concern here. Because I thought about myself, like, “Well, you are a woman. You are a progressive woman.” I have a son and every time he goes to school, if there is a phone call, I'm worried about a school shooting happening. As I look at the administration, I'm worried also as a physician and a woman about women's rights and abortion laws. I know this whole massive thing is happening in my home country that I literally can't sleep at night. You spend the night crying, you wake up, you go to work, you share all those first things that I told you about the social injustice here where we live plus another layer of what is happening inside your home country. And it's sort of like people didn't know, like our colleagues are compassionate, our friends and neighbors were, but they just didn't know what was happening. There was so much else going on.
So, part of it was bridging those gaps. Part of it was our very difficult reckoning that we realize a lot of the information being put out there is what we call a lot of whitewashing, and also propaganda going on in the news by people who had all the good intentions calling on these pundits to come because of the relation they had built over time. But although it was impossible for them to literally support the regime, nobody could say the regime is doing something good. There were pictures out there, but they would minimize it and they would just navigate or race through it to either make it just about the hair covering, all sorts of things in order to make them less evil. And that was also another thing that was tearing us apart, that we don't have a voice. What if people who have no gain can talk? People, regular people, people who survive, people who have families back there. Your teacher could talk about it, who is just an Iranian woman and doesn't get paid to go on any program. So that was another concept. Trying to tell the stories without any type of trying to be politically correct or trying to censor anything or change the narrative. Hearing firsthand stories, especially in the era of social media and a lot of platforms that you can use, because a lot of great people were asking, “Where can we get that information from?”
And I learned it also through activism with other groups like the Ukrainian groups I mentioned earlier. That this propaganda is a huge tool for authoritarian governments. I thought it's only our government, but then they told me how a lot of their fight is against Putin’s narrative of changing historical facts, justifying the crime they're doing there, or speaking on behalf of some Ukrainians saying, “We'd rather end the war even if we lose our land” and things like that. So the apologists are apparently everywhere. And there's a lot that those governments actually spend on changing the minds of the people living in liberal democracies, so it was really important for us. And then the more we heard the stories, the more it felt like, “Okay, there has to be a focus also that we are immigrants, and immigrants make about 15% of the US population.” I just looked up those numbers and I was also blown away to confirm that about 15% of the people here were born outside the United States, so they have another home country to worry about. It could be an Afghan woman, it could be that Ukrainian woman who was crying one day because the night before they bombed a children's hospital. And they are among us. And again, going back to having that second layer of complexity and because of what happens, whether it's human right violation or because of the war happening in their home country, they're suffering. And lastly, by nature, immigrant women shy away from talking. Part of it is the language barrier, they don't feel comfortable, part of it is the longstanding historical oppression, not trusting the system, not trusting the government. There are multiple barriers. They fear for our families back home, they feel uncomfortable, they might be very much tangled in trying to get settled in the new country rather than being more involved in grassroots activism. So, going back to how I-WILL was born, basically those ideas. You are part of this community, you're contributing, and you feel unheard, you feel unseen. And there are great people out there. Once they see and hear, they can help out, even if it's offering sympathy versus taking actual actions on national or even international levels. It has been a journey, and the idea evolved also and actually is active and continues to evolve as well.
AA: Thanks so much for that.
I am really struck by the power of art and storytelling as activism and as a way for people to process their feelings and heal. I wonder if you can speak a little bit more about art and storytelling as the focus of I-WILL, and maybe even share some of the specific stories of women who've been involved.
NG: Absolutely. Here's Naseem talking again. Art was an inseparable perk of the Woman, Life, Freedom from day one. This song Baraye by Shervin Hajipour came out and was released on September 28th, only 12 days after Mahsa was murdered, and it was viewed by 40 million people within 48 hours. It was very simple. The lyrics were basically exactly the tweets that people were putting out, explaining why they're doing what they're doing, what for? For kissing on the street or holding hands, for my sister or my brother. And that simple lyric became such a worldwide and global phenomenon that actually in February it won the Grammy Award for social change. So the art was part of this movement. It was a huge part of this movement, and artists were arrested on a daily basis in Iran. Shervin was arrested one day after that song came out. There was Toomaj Salehi, who eventually was even sentenced to death and was released after months of solitary confinement and massive amount of torture. Because art has the beauty of expressing feelings, realities, and truth so well. You can read history books, but that feeling that the art gives you and what it inspires in you is bigger than all of that.
Another great part of the movement, other than the songs, was photography. The photos and also the drawings that came out of it. Those absolutely inspiring and courageous pictures of one woman standing in front of all those militia forces who are shielded from head to toe, and this one woman with one fist that's standing in front of them, a young girl. And then the photos became iconic and then artists started to draw. Artists’ work started to change people who had been drawing in various forms. They also evolved their work into expressing all those beautiful moments of resistance, of resilience. Books came out that actually put those works together.It was partly us watching that and getting inspired, and also when we displayed those, we got huge feedback of people understanding the reality of what's happening without having to put it into any further words.
AA: Amazing. Can you share some of the other women's stories with us that you've maybe met through I-WILL who have been sharing their stories with you?
KO: I can share one, and then I think Reina as well, you were going to share some, too. This is Kelly, by the way. In the first I-WILL share session of this year, we spoke to Tara, who I also had the honor of interviewing for a podcast that we did with Nasem as well. She is Bahai, and we spoke to a couple other women that were Bahai as well. It's a really interesting religious minority in Iran, even though it's probably the largest religious group in Iran after Islam. It's very much its own standalone religion with beautiful traditions and a long history, but they're being targeted by the Islamic Republic to scapegoat, you know, it's always useful for an authoritarian regime to scapegoat a minority group that's a little bit different. And Tara was also such a wonderful speaker, such a powerful speaker. She's in the United States now, and she experienced so much harassment as a child in school by her classmates and by her teachers, by the administration telling her that it would be good for the world if they were to kill her. That's the principal of the school telling this to a child, that they're dirty and wrong. So that's a story that we've heard multiple times from women in this group. And it is something that Tara didn't want to give a lot of her personal information, and we didn't record that session because it's a very retaliatory administration and they want to scare people, as Saghi was talking about. So that's another reason why it's hard to speak up and hard to share art, because you're potentially putting yourself at risk and potentially endangering people that you care about, as well. And that's what's so inspiring about this movement, is people saying, “Enough. We're going to do the right thing for everyone and give ourselves that freedom.” So that's just a little bit of Tara's story. Reina, if you want to share anything else.
RR: I guess I could share Elham’s story. Elham has always been against the oppression that's happening in Iran. She always would go outside during Woman, Life, Freedom, she started going outside helping others as well as just protesting against all the brutality that has been happening to Iranian people. With whatever the means they had, they identified her. So they went to her home, they arrested her really brutally, they even scared her mom, her mom was really, really scared. They confiscated everything in their home and they arrested her. After that, they arrested her brother as well. The situation was so bad that when they took her to the interrogation to ask her questions, they would tell her, because she loves her brother so much, “we're beating up your brother.” And the things that they were saying, the way they were torturing her in the prison– they took her and sent her to prison, and they told her that she's going to get the execution because of the way she's been protesting. They gave her injections, they gave her things that she didn't even know what they are, they wouldn't tell her what it is. Eventually they did so much that she felt sick. Finally, we were able to bail her out because so many people actually said her name. At that time, there was Elham and a few other women that went on hunger strikes, so their names really came out and people were talking about it. So I guess the government got a little bit scared and they just allowed her to be bailed out. And then she was bailed out and she was so sick that they had to take her to the hospital. When she went to the hospital, they said her liver was failing. It was so bad. Looking at the situations one by one, there are so many things happening to the women in Iran that the world doesn't realize. They don't understand what's happening and what's going on. And as soon as these women are so brave to come out and to talk about their situation, I think that's when you literally feel the shiver to your spine just to see what's been happening. Elham is just one of them that thankfully we were able to help, but there are so many that unfortunately we were not able to save, so they died and it was just so bad. Everything was so brutal at that time.
AA: Can I deviate from the script just a little bit and ask, you say you're able to save certain women, how do you actually save them?
“it’s always useful for an authoritarian regime to scapegoat a minority group”
RR: We can only help them if they're out of Iran. For example, Elham was able to be smuggled out of Iran and go to Türkiye. There are so many lawyers, so many human rights advocates, for example, in Canada and all around the world that step up to help Iranians. These refugees go to Türkiye to get them out. So it's not just during Woman, Life, Freedom that this happened, it's been happening for many years. But I guess Woman, Life, Freedom became huge throughout the world and people realized it. So saving them, I guess it's not one person, it's groups of people getting together to find ways to lobby the government here in Canada. We were able to get a visa for her by lobbying a lot of senators and the members of Parliament to say, “Look at her story.” For example, Elham's situation was dire. She would've died if she hadn’t been brought here. She did eventually get her transplant in Türkiye because we were able to get some money for her through people of Iran, people all over the world, Iranians and non-Iranians, who helped with her GoFundMe. But when she came here, we were able to lobby the government. It's not easy. It's very difficult to lobby the government because they have to look at the situation in terms of– because Iranians are not the only refugees, as we know. There are so many other situations around the world, so they have to look at it and it's a matter of how much you lobby them. There are people in Germany that help refugees to go to Germany. USA is helping as well. All around the world, people who were able to smuggle themselves out of Iran and get into Türkiye have been helped. So we can't do that from Iran. It's very, very complicated. It could put them at risk and our families at risk as well.
AA: This isn't necessarily work that I-WILL is doing, right? Getting people there. My understanding is that I-WILL is an organization that helps people share their stories and join online campaigns. But when you say “we're getting them out”, is that I-WILL or is that other people?
RR: Not I-WILL, but I-WILL helps when they move to a safe country. I-WILL can bring them to share their stories and I-WILL will make those known.
AA: Yeah, okay, I just wanted to clarify which groups were doing what. One thing that was really coming to my mind hearing about these stories, the last two stories, was to ask, I mean, I have my own thoughts about this since I value storytelling so much, but I just wanted to hear your thoughts about how it helps women to be able to share their stories. How does it affect the teller of the story to be able to share, and then how does it affect the listener? What is the purpose for the teller and the listener that has made that kind of a cornerstone of what you do?
KO: This is Kelly again. One thing that everyone should remember is that storytelling is so ancient. The only shared human experience older than storytelling is dancing. This is really a fundamental part of being a human, and it can connect us so powerfully. The reason that I am involved in this group is because I listened to and worked with the stories of four women really in depth for a podcast episode that we made in collaboration. This was before Naseem helped found I-WILL. We worked together to try and share stories, and it was in asking questions, in listening, and then in the process of editing it that these stories sink into my blood. That's what I think it does for listeners. When you hear someone really tell their own experience in their own words, there's nothing more powerful. You can read books, which is very important, but there's nothing like really getting a firsthand account. So from the listener side, it makes the experience so much more rich because I learned these small personal details. What was the beauty of living in Iran? That's what really hit me the hardest, is the smell of the orange trees, visiting an uncle's woodworking shop. These really powerful personal connections that then people have to flee. They have to flee a place that they love. And that is what I really hope that other people hear from this, and I think that that's often what gets lost when you talk about refugees, is it's like, “Well, good thing they're out now.” And you're not thinking about the fact that that place was powerful and beautiful and it was important. It's not like we here live in this shining temple on a hill. No, everywhere's the same, you know, and we're lucky that we have freedom and protections at this time.
Now, telling the story, we heard this from Vinal, really the hardest thing was not being physically with her in person to do these stories. But she talked about how to have everyone be so receptive, just to have people listen, is really powerful. And telling your story can help remove the shame from it. That happens so often with victims of violence, you start to feel like “this is my fault,” like “I've done something to deserve this.” And by telling your story and having other people listen with respect and honor and love, can help expose the honor, the bravery, the creativity, and the intelligence that a person had to display in order to survive this event. That's why it's so important to us to help them tell these stories, because they deserve to have that shame removed. They deserve to be celebrated for what they have done to protect themselves and take care of themselves, and then also to see that they're not alone. I think we've all experienced that, where we've kept some secret and then didn't want to reveal it, and then once we did, all of a sudden there's a community. So to see other people who have gone through the same thing, or even to see people who have not gone through the same thing but show you love and compassion, that helps strengthen community and that's a really powerful reason why we think storytelling's so important.
AA: Yeah, wonderful.
NG: Also, as she said in her podcast on Kinship Tales, she interviewed us during the first few weeks after this had happened, so I wanted to just share a little bit of experience as somebody who spoke at that time and how it felt. Some of the experiences on the street we had shared. I had been on those streets decades before that. I was beaten up on those streets. I went to jail myself. Nothing major compared to what happened to some of those girls. One night here and a little bit there and a little bit beaten up. A lot of women unfortunately have that. But then she started asking me questions and took me through her questions to tell my story of my childhood, what I loved about my home country, and also taking it back to what had happened to me over there. And as I was talking to you, and that's the art, I guess, of Kelly, of you, who bring out these stories and ask me about those experiences. And I shared things that I even didn't think I would've shared on air. And it felt good and it also felt like some resistance. I kind of felt like, “Okay. I did something to get back at those monsters.” I felt like, “I told people how horrible you are.” And it also felt somehow brave, although I was out of that situation. It was really impressive, and I thought, “If I feel like that, and I haven't been through even nearly what, for example, Tara had been through or Elham had been through, they might feel better after sharing.” And then we got that feedback that it feels like something is lifted off your chest. It feels good. And then you hear people supporting you and you realize you are not alone. And it's them who are the monsters, the bad people. They are alone in this world. And you do feel empowered by that.
AA: Other than this storytelling work, which is so important and powerful, what other work does I-WILL do?
NG: I believe this one is also for me. Naseem speaking. We have a whole initiative for the upcoming year, and that kind of sums up what we have done and what we continue to do. Other than sharing the stories, we hold conferences and handle speaking and art exhibitions. Through all of that, we bring these difficult conversations. The one that we had last year at the anniversary of Woman, Life, Freedom, we had panelists who were women who were human rights activists also joined by an international lawyer on gender apartheid. And our audience was very diverse, local activist groups, mostly non-Iranian, who wanted to learn about what's happening there. The conversation that the panelists had, the questions that were asked, and Elham’s story was shared during that event. We had some support and sponsorship by the National Organization for Women, so their representatives were there, the largest feminist organization. And they were also in awe and inspired and also they learned a lot. It was so good to know even activist people are learning a lot through these kinds of conversations. They asked excellent questions and Elham actually was interviewed by their previous chapter president, who wanted to know, like you asked, how can they help?
And hearing them firsthand from her was very different from us, because a lot of times those smear campaigns, that propaganda, they're trying to say, “These are for war or anti-progressive.” We have seen how a lot of Iranian activists have been smeared by the regime itself, trying to not get the voice out, but having them sitting off in the background as organizers and letting these people talk, and then we also had an art exhibition on the side, art created by immigrant women. So they were not other people trying to show what is happening, including Elham herself, who had painted, and other Iranian women who had made it out of the country, and they had paintings, over there talking to these representatives from the city council, from multiple city mayors and councils, and house representatives sharing their support messages for them. So it was inspiring for our people and it was also great for them to hear and ask questions.
That's something we are recreating again this year. Our initiative consists of one other event in Washington State and one with the Yazidi community you heard about in Reina’s story in Arizona, so a panel conversation and art exhibitions. And I wanted to circle back, we do have an initiative that we have not publicly started or announced yet. It has more work to do, it's probably going to be in another six months to maybe a year before we have the bandwidth and foundation for it, but I-WILL Prosper will be a resource for these women who are within their first three years of moving out of the country, and they need victim support, they need jobs, they need to get back to their lives. So we will have that as starting the funding process just for that reason, because immigrant women are also, a lot of them are the victims that, as we talked about earlier, they have lost their eye, they have bodily harm. They may not be able to work and raise a family here now, and now they’re all here among us.
AA: That's wonderful. Well, that leads me to the next question I wanted to ask, which is a follow-up to the question I introduced earlier, and that is what listeners can do to help. And I know, just speaking for myself as an American woman, I sometimes hear about what's going on in Iran or Afghanistan or other places around the world. And I know that sometimes it's hard to not feel hopeless because I don't know what to do to help, and sometimes I'll think I do want to help, but then I know that looking back historically, sometimes well-intentioned efforts actually backfire. They have unintended consequences, or there's white saviorism, and it can be kind of paralyzing. It's important to know how to direct our efforts when we do want to help and what will actually be supportive. So I wonder how you see this issue and what would be the most valuable way, like I said earlier, what would be the most valuable way that people can support women who are not necessarily part of their own home community, but if we want to show solidarity with our sisters throughout the world?
KO: This is Kelly. I think the most important thing is just remaining open for connection and really remaining open for requests. I definitely never expected to be a part of an Iranian women's rights organization. When I was growing up, I knew Iran didn't like America, and that was about the end of what I knew about Iran. It was a really two-dimensional idea that I had. But I stumbled across the protests, the activism that Naseem talked about. My husband and I were actually going to a LEGO convention to record an episode of our podcast. So a very different event, but we had all of our recording equipment with us, so we started recording audio of the event as we were walking around. And then Naseem saw us with our cameras out and she gave us a flyer and we gave her a business card. And then she reached out to us and said, “We want to start producing some content.” And we were like, “Yes, let's do this. Let's work together.” And we made some social media posts, we made the podcast, and, you know, that was the request. Naseem said, “Hey, can you help us do this?” And then Naseem was hosting the event at the anniversary of Mahsa Jina Amini’s killing, and she said, “Can you attend?” And I said I will, and said, “Can you volunteer?” So it's always just showing up and saying, “What can I do?” And not trying to dictate solutions. Try to not say, “This is what I think should happen.” It's just waiting to be asked.
I think that's one of the most important things, and Tara said in the podcast, she said that the Iranian women, the Middle Eastern women, they do not need the West to save them. They need us to stop saving their killers. A big part of this is getting out of the way and letting people take care of themselves. There is a massive misconception, in my opinion, that the West sees itself as superior and that we have all the answers and we need to go into places where there are problems and go fix their problems. And in my opinion, that is really flawed on so many levels. So I think recognizing that we're all in this fight together, as I am fighting for Iranian women, I'm helping American women, not only because we have refugees here, but also because we're all one people and we just need to start to see that fighting for freedom and democracy and the right to health and the right to love is a shared problem. So, yeah, that's the end of my thoughts. Reina, I don't know if you want to speak on this, but you've talked about working with other organizations yourself up in Canada, and I don't know if you would like to share. I don't think we talked about that beforehand, but I'd be really interested to know more about your experience there.
RR: Sure, I can share a little bit. Since the Mahsa Jina Amini movement, I started working with different groups within Canada, not really on a huge scale, just on a small volunteering basis. Most of the issues we had were that the people were kind of divided on different situations. And as Naseem said, the government, the Iranian regime, there were a lot of people around just to smear everybody's names. So within those organizations we've had these issues as well. It was really difficult just to get the word out, and when we got the word out, there were people around that would smear them, that would make it more challenging for us to just get everything out. So that was one of the things we had. But yeah, there are many different organizations that are working within Canada as well that were doing a lot of work to organize protests. So rallies, for example, Toronto had one of the biggest rallies, and the groups that work together work very well together.
And then also there are different groups, but unfortunately not everybody gets along with each other. That's the issue, I think. It's not just in the Iranian community, I think it's a lot of different groups, like even if you talk to the Ukrainian community, they have a similar issue as well. I think these were the challenges. But for the most part, we were successful to a point in getting the Canadian government to designate the Islamic Republic of Iran Revolutionary Guard, which is the worst of the worst militaries in the world, to get them designated as terrorists. We had to do a lot of work. People had to do a lot of work, a lot of petitions, a lot of things. So just having people listening to us Iranians and understanding, like non-Iranians just to listen to us, to understand and not fall for the propaganda that is happening within the media community. Our belief system is that the media has to be unbiased, has to be telling us the truth, what is exactly happening. But unfortunately in 2025, it's not happening. That's not what's happening. Each news source is giving us different information and different propaganda. Some of them are funded by the Islamic Republic, some of them are funded by different organizations like the Mojahedin-e-Khalq, which is another group that was the reason why 1979 happened. But then there are Islamists and very extreme groups as well that are funded by NIAC, which is another group within the US that makes a lot of apologies for the Islamic Republic.
“the Iranian women, the Middle Eastern women, they do not need the West to save them. They need us to stop saving their killers.”
Unfortunately, the reality is that the media, some of the media, is funded by the wrong people, so they're not really giving us the truth. It's really important for non-Iranians to attend the rallies, to attend our protests and just listen to the Iranian people, what we actually experience and what I grew up with in Iran. I was 21 when I left Iran, so it was in 2009. I went back home and that was the Green Movement, that was one of another movement that was happening at that time. So I went to the streets and I was arrested. It's important that I lived that experience. As Naseem said, she lived that experience. So we lived that experience, and listening to us, listening to those women that were political prisoners now out of Iran and they're talking, they're giving the speeches. It is important just to listen to them and understand and that believing them is a huge help. And also a lot of help that not-Iranians can do is just if we have petitions, if we are asking for things to happen, for example, if we're asking you to write to your MPs, I mean members of Parliament, all around the world, just to help us to do that, get the news out. I think that's a huge help just to make sure that everybody understands that Islamic Republic will need to end. There's no way that that government can be restored in a different way. Iranians are divided, but they have one goal: the Islamic Republic has to go, and that's really important for non-Iranians to understand.
AA: Thank you.
NG: I know we need to wrap up, this is Naseem again, but just a few words. If you're listening to this podcast, if you're listening to Iranian women, you are part of the resistance. It is really as simple as that. The worst thing these governments, these authoritarian regimes are doing is making these women feel forgotten and that the world doesn't care about you. And then you show that you are there for them and you listen to them and you care in any way, if it's liking a story, following those artists, any way. Sharing this podcast episode, sharing those stories at a dinner table, then they are not forgotten. They exist through your words and there are stories being told at those tables. And we are definitely not looking for any kind of heroic act coming in ready to save us, but we do believe in collective action. We believe that change can come when people actually come together. A lot of those works have happened that save lives, like Toomaj, when going from a life sentence and coming out of confinement and being released, was through a huge amount of work that the diaspora did. Letters written to congress, there were US Congress members who actually signed letters in his support. We got political sponsors, people who are actively either in the government or mostly in the parliaments, actively writing to the Iranian embassies and asking for these people's release. So, as Reina said, signing those petitions, being their voices, it's common sense and you don't have to worry about bringing the change that maybe people didn't want. It's basic human rights. And lastly, remember that your power is so much that these people have invested so much so that we are not heard. Two examples are listening to Toomaj. He has a song about a mouse hole by a rat hole, and that's referring to people who need to be worried about the consequences of their actions once freedom is restored. And one part of his song is about the apologists outside Iran. The guards inside Iran know this huge strong narrative is out here. Hossein Ronaghi, who is actually in jail as we are speaking, actually sewed his lips in the past to protest against the regime. He made a list of people and organizations, he's inside Iran, but he's putting out information about people that you shouldn't be listening to. So don't listen to me or Reina or others, you can find those activists inside Iran to follow them. And we have tried to provide some of those resources on our website, great resources on different activists so you can follow them and listen to them, plus the artists’ stories are there in their own voices.
AA: Wonderful. Saghi, do you want to say something here, too?
SS: Yes. What I want to add is to lead with genuine curiosity. I would say that a lot of times you might see someone Iranian around you, or you might see an Afghan woman, anyone from the Middle East. Anyone has a story, and you can just ask them, “How was school?” If they've been divorced, “How did it go?” And trust me, from the very genuine connection of them telling you, if they feel comfortable to share, and also if you are close enough to ask them, I think a lot can be conveyed and you can very much understand the state of the mind of the person at that time and if it has changed or if they have some different perspective. So I would say really simply asking and being willing and patient to hear about what people talk about. I think you are going to learn a lot. And like every other situation around the world, there are people who have different points of view, but as you listen to them, you realize that the methods of oppression are pretty similar. Or you are talking about the same problem, but you are thinking about different methods and different angles of processing it. So I think talking to people in contrast to listening to a pundit is the best possible way. Because unfortunately, something about the regime in Iran is that they have disconnected all connections they had with any news agency. I think it's only Reuters now that can go and take pictures inside Iran, and CNN had one single journalist recently going to Iran and they very much celebrated it. At the same time, the journalist knew that she's not going to be able to see a lot, and what they saw was very much curated by the regime. So a lot of times you might see some journalists who might come and give you a story which is in exchange for access to information inside Iran. So, I would say just try to hear more voices that can give you a better idea of different points of view.
Something that I really would love if people can do is to talk to others in your circle, influence people you know about what you learned and heard, like around the kitchen table. I don't need you to write a blog post about something that you're not comfortable sharing, but I think just a quick chat with your family members, loved ones, your colleague, if you are comfortable just telling them, “Hey, I've heard about this and this is the information I got.” And that would, I think, raise enough curiosity in people and also lead them towards making decisions for themselves. I think we're seeing too many manifestations and not enough connections and conversation and that kind of ripples people. So I think just by simply talking, that would be helpful. And also, use the tools that are available to you. A lot of times people might shut you down, like “check your privilege.” But I would say use your privilege. If you have a situation, if you have a Twitter account and you see that it seems like a lot of Iranians are trying to trend something, especially when it comes to like death penalties or if it's about a specific prisoner, in that situation, I would say yes, do write about it on Bluesky, Twitter, Instagram, et cetera. Yes, please amplify that. At the same time, if there is a possibility to talk with your representatives to include human rights issues when conversations come up with Iran, that would be amazing. Because for sure in the EU, the US, the UK, Australia, et cetera, they are going to speak with Iran, especially when it comes to nuclear power. There is this constant back-and-forth of negotiations, and ultimately they just want a deal that Iran would say, “Okay, you're not going to go and seek this kind of energy for bad purposes.” I really wish these countries would consider adding human rights issues to those conversations.
And I want to add this. Something that has really fundamentally changed after 2022 is that the people in Iran, they're not looking for solutions to tolerate this regime. That is something that very much changed compared to 2009. I was also in the streets, that's when I saw that they can very much kill people. That's when Neda Agha-Soltan was shot dead in the street. At that time, people were willing to see reform, and then their votes were stolen and they were asking, “Where's my vote? I want my candidate back.” Right now, that is not the issue. Right now, I think I can firmly say that there is this consensus among people that this regime fundamentally is against human rights, it's against women's rights, and there is no way to continue living under this regime and have the thought of human rights being held. Fundamentally, the way that this regime has been constructed and the way that it operates will negate human rights. It's either the Bahais, it's either women, there is always someone being oppressed. This regime has to go, and this is the message that we do hear from even prisoners inside Iran. There is Narges Mohammadi, who is the Nobel Prize laureate of 2023, if I am correct, and she very much sent a message in a video online that she very firmly says, “This regime cannot be corrected or reformed. It has to go.” And now the question is, how would this regime go without causing more damage and suffering and chaos in the region? I would say, if someone tells you that Iranian people are always protesting, that's not a cute protest. People are fed up. It is over. At the same time, we want to keep the dignity and the right to live of people when it comes to the situation in Iran. So, just be curious and keep asking, and let's stay hopeful.
AA: Thank you all for those suggestions. My last question will be where we can find your work. Tell us where we can find you on social media or a website so that listeners can get involved.
SS: Yes, absolutely. You can go to our website. It's i-will.org. We have a Twitter account, it's called @iwillorg, no dashes, nothing. And we are also active on Instagram and you can search for the handle @womenforlifeandliberty and you will see the logo is a woman with her hair colored with colors of fire. I would be grateful if people could check us out online, send us a message, subscribe to our newsletter. We would love to hear more about your thoughts and your feedback.
AA: Thank you so much. Thank you, Saghi, Reina, Naseem, and Kelly. Thank you for being here. Thank you for all the work you're doing. It's been such an honor to talk with you today.
SS: Thank you, Amy.
RR: Thank you.
NG: Thank you so much Amy, and huge thanks to your audience who will listen to these stories. Some of them are very hard to listen to, but they still will listen to us and will be there after us. Thank you so much for giving us this opportunity.
KO: Thank you.
