Under the threat of retaliation, Reza Khandan refuses to be silenced.
Sunday marks one year since 60-year-old Iranian human rights activist Reza Khandan was arrested in what was clearly another official attack on his family. Political prisoners in authoritarian regimes are meant to disappear into hopeless silence, but Khandan has become a force to be reckoned with.
A graphic artist by vocation, Khandan has dedicated much of his life to campaigning for social progress in Iran. He met his wife, internationally acclaimed human rights attorney Nasrin Sotoudeh, when they were working for a political journal called A Gate for Dialogue. They were married in 1995. During Sotoudeh’s time in prison on charges of “spreading propaganda” and “conspiring to harm state security” (from 2010 to 2013, then again from 2018 to 2021), Khandan raised their young children, ran his business, and regularly put himself at risk advocating for his wife’s freedom and for the causes they share.
“During my long years of imprisonment, Reza never complained,” Sotoudeh said. “He was threatened many times for supporting me, but even in the darkest days of our lives, he has always stood on the side of the truth with a courage that gives me a lot of strength.”
A special focus for Khandan and Sotoudeh is the symbol of their country’s repressive laws against women, the compulsory hijab, or headscarf. Khandan said in an interview for CNN International, “When you respect a person’s individuality and freedom, it goes beyond the hijab or clothing choices. I’m not against women who want to be veiled. I am against the government mandating the hijab for all women, regardless of their faith or practices. And it’s not just about the hijab. I’m against the forced imposition of any religion or belief.”
Khandan was first arrested in 2018, along with his friend Dr. Farhad Meysami, for creating thousands of handmade buttons that said, “I OPPOSE THE MANDATORY HIJAB.” The charges against them included “gathering and collusion against national security,” “propaganda against the regime” and “spreading and promoting not wearing a hijab.” Khandan served 111 days of a six-year sentence before being released on bail so he could care for his children while Nasrin Sotoudeh was in prison. A severely malnourished Farhad was freed in February 2023.
On Dec. 14, 2024, Khandan was re-arrested at his home and taken away without having a moment to say goodbye to his family. He is now facing another two and a half years in the foul and overcrowded Evin Prison, the same facility that held Nasrin Sotoudeh for over half a decade.
Until this year’s war with Israel, Evin housed between 15,000 and 20,000 prisoners. Along with inedible food and widespread vermin, inmates experience beatings, denial of medical care, months in solitary confinement, brutal interrogations, and torture.
Sotoudeh said, “Reza has not been idle. As soon as he entered Ward 8 of the prison last year, he went on a hunger strike to protest the almost unlivable conditions. This prompted the prison authorities to take steps to improve some of the conditions.”
That was the first of many actions to come.
In January 2025, Khandan and Sotoudeh’s 17-year-old son Nima was savagely beaten by prison guards when he tried to visit his father. He was hospitalized and has recovered, but it was traumatic (as intended) for him and his entire family.
In response, Khandan launched another hunger strike and posted a blistering public complaint. As punishment, prison authorities transferred him to solitary and denied him any communication with family or friends. Sotoudeh filed a still-pending legal case against the warden and his staff.
In March 2025, Khandan smuggled a statement out of prison that demanded “the freedom of political prisoners” and “the end of the mandatory hijab.” He also spoke of a fellow prisoner and the composer of a song that became a rallying cry for the Woman, Life, Freedom movement, writing: “I would like to draw attention to the esteemed singer Mehdi Yarrahi whose horrific report of being tortured with a whip in recent weeks shocked us all. He was also a victim of the violent violation of freedom of expression and was punished for his song titled Take Off Your Headscarf.”
In May, Khandan put himself in further jeopardy by conducting a covert interview with Time magazine. His criticism of prison conditions was fearless, as was his challenge to Iran’s leadership.
“I have a duty and the privilege to defend my rights and the rights of others. Without that, there is a dark future for us and our children,” Khandan said. “Leaders of authoritarian governments do not want to hear anything except praise. They always deem themselves to be an exception to the lessons of history. But they should know, history doesn’t have any exceptions.”
In June, at the beginning of the 12-day war between Israel and Iran, Khandan sent a letter to the head of Iran’s judiciary citing an Iranian law that states all non-violent prisoners should be freed during wartime. He also managed to arrange a meeting with the prison director. His pleas were ignored. Days later, Israeli bombs hit Evin Prison in the deadliest attack of the war. Over 70 people were killed, and dozens of guards, prisoners, and visitors were wounded.
In a public letter, Khandan made clear who was to blame.
“We warned that such an attack would have catastrophic consequences,” he wrote. “Now the responsibility for the deaths of prisoners, staff, and others lies squarely with the prison administration, the Prisons Organization, and the head of the judiciary, who knowingly ignored the law and let this tragedy happen.”
On June 30, Khandan once again put himself at risk by publishing a letter that described the forced evacuation of inmates from the badly damaged Evin Prison. Led by the warden, guards pointed weapons at the prisoners and “ordered us to be shackled together with handcuffs and leg chains. The chains were so tight and painful that with every small movement, we would lose balance, and the shackles dug deeper into our ankles, drawing cries of pain from every prisoner. Not a single wounded prisoner was taken to hospital, not even the critically injured.”
This began a terrifying 24-hour journey, without food or water, on foot and on several buses, with explosions echoing around them, to the Great Tehran Central Penitentiary.
Khandan went on to describe their destination.
“Still in shock from the bombing and the horrific transfer, we were met with the harsh reality of our new hell. Violence and intimidation had arrived before us, ready to ‘welcome’ the new inmates. The place is overcrowded, disorganized, unsanitary, and infested with flies and insects. There is no peace. The prison water is salty and foul-smelling, making these hot summer days even more unbearable.”
Leaders of authoritarian governments do not want to hear anything except praise. They always deem themselves to be an exception to the lessons of history. But they should know, history doesn’t have any exceptions.
Reza Khandan
In 2013, Sotoudeh and Khandan were founding members of the “Step by Step to Stop the Death Penalty” campaign. In August 2025, Khandan released a letter about Iran’s shocking increase in executions. “In the wake of the recent devastating war,” he wrote, “the judiciary’s execution machine has accelerated with utmost speed and severity. Not a week passes without the announcement of new executions.”
“From morning till night, I repeatedly pass by fellow inmates who are under a death sentence. I see them walking, eating, smoking, washing clothes, and going to the shower. In every such moment, I cannot help but picture their execution scenes in my mind – and there are more than ever awaiting their summons. It is beyond belief how human beings can be treated like this. If we remain silent, our children will judge us harshly.”
In May, Khandan staged a prison protest because the administration banned visits from Sotoudeh and their daughter Mehraveh unless they wore a hijab, which they refused to do. In October, he began a four-week sit-in near the warden’s office to call attention to this ongoing injustice. He found support from a dozen fellow prisons who issued a letter that described the visitation ban as “a form of psychological torture.”
Also in October, new charges of “spreading lies” were brought against Khandan stemming from the letter he wrote condemning Iran’s increasing use of the death penalty.
In November, Khandan received an extension of his sentence for joining with other prisoners in his ward who tried to prevent guards from transferring Ehsan Afrashteh, a 31-year-old prisoner accused of espionage, to Ghezel Hesar Prison for execution.
A few months earlier, another young man Khandan knew was sent to the same prison to be executed. Babak Shahbazi had been accused of espionage, but he said he was tortured into a false confession.
Khandan wrote, “The image of him, empty-handed and flanked by two plainclothes agents in the prison’s green yard, waiting to be transferred, is forever etched in my memory. His distant gaze was among the bitterest scenes I have ever witnessed in my life.”
Now, Khandan enters his second year in prison in a small cell that holds four other men punished for their free expression: Reza Valizadeh, a former Radio Farda reporter who was falsely brought to Iran by the security forces and sentenced to 10 years in prison; Zia Nabavi, a Ph.D. student in sociology who is serving two more years after already serving nine years in prison; Nasrollah Amirloo, an industrial engineer and activist (and also a poet and artist) who has been in prison many times; plus another young man who was sentenced to 14 months in prison for a few posts on Instagram.
“The crime for which Reza Khandan is in prison is the crime of love,” writes Ariel Dorfman, author, human rights advocate and friend of Sotoudeh and Khandan. “Not just love of his country and its culture. Not just love of humanity and our rights to be human. Not just love for the future. But also, the real reason why he is being punished: Reza loves the extraordinary Nasrin with whom he shares a life, a land, and a cause. How those who persecute Reza must fear his loyalty and steadfastness. He will prevail.”
Everything in the previous 12 months, and in his life, shows that the Iranian regime will crack well before Reza Khandan bends an inch.
“I will continue until I achieve legal rights, restore my family’s dignity, and change the conditions of the prison administration,” Khandan wrote. “May the shadow of terror and tyranny be removed from our beloved country one day. And finally, I would like to add: ‘I object to the compulsory hijab!’”
