As mass protests and a deadly crackdown grip Iran, human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh speaks from Tehran while her husband, activist Reza Khandan, calls in from Evin Prison—offering a rare, firsthand account of repression, resistance and the stakes for democracy inside the country.
Last month, Iran experienced the largest nationwide protests since the founding of the Islamic Republic in 1979—alongside one of the deadliest crackdowns by the regime in decades. Reports estimate tens of thousands were killed and tens of thousands more arrested, as authorities responded with live ammunition, mass detentions and what human rights groups have described as massacres in multiple cities.
The demonstrations erupted amid soaring prices, a collapsing economy and widespread anger at government corruption and mismanagement. At their core were longstanding grievances over compulsory hijab laws and the broader legal subjugation of women, including restrictions on travel and employment imposed by husbands and discriminatory divorce rules.
These protests build directly on the earlier Woman, Life, Freedom uprising sparked by the death in custody of Mahsa (Jina) Amini and later cases such as teenager Armita Geravand, both detained over hijab rules. Activists widely frame the current unrest as a continuation of that women-led struggle, in which gender oppression is seen as central to the regime’s broader authoritarian system.
Authorities have responded with internet blackouts, curfews, heavily militarized patrols and bans on gatherings—measures designed to obscure killings and prevent organizing.
A few days after internet access was restored in Tehran, internationally acclaimed human rights attorney and former political prisoner Nasrin Sotoudeh shared her perspective on the causes and consequences of the repression. Sotoudeh has long been on the frontlines of the struggle for democracy and women’s rights in Iran. A mother of two, she spent more than six years in prison for her activism and was ultimately released on medical leave with a severe heart condition.
In December 2024, her husband, fellow human rights activist Reza Khandan, was arrested for supporting Sotoudeh and her work. He is now being held in Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison.
I directed and wrote the documentary Nasrin, and spoke to her from Los Angeles. She is in Tehran. Our translator was Parisa Saranj. Toward the end of the conversation, Reza Khandan was able to briefly join us on a phone from prison.
Reza faces at least another two years in prison. Nasrin knows that she could be re-arrested at any time. They, and thousands of others in Iran, are proof that there won’t be “silence in the face of oppression and tyranny.”
Jeff Kaufman: Describe the cause of the protests, and your reaction to the government’s response.
Nasrin Sotoudeh: The demonstrations and unrest grew out of the pressure people across the country feel from rapidly increasing inflation, endless surveillance and arrests, and a currency that has become almost worthless.
The government’s response has been a shocking crime.
One thing that made it especially painful was when Reza Pahlavi, the crown prince, told Iranians to pour into the streets and “seize city centers.” Then President Trump said that we should “keep protesting” and “help is on the way.” That really did put more people out on the streets, and it made the massacre even more brutal.
Blood is on the hands of this government, and the main responsibility lies with the leader of the Islamic Republic himself.
President Trump said that we should ‘keep protesting’ and ‘help is on the way.’ That really did put more people out on the streets, and it made the massacre even more brutal.
Nasrin Sotoudeh
Kaufman: I should note that Pahlavi resides in a Washington, D.C., suburb, and he apparently lives on money that his father took from Iran when he was in power. President Trump has threatened military action against Iran “with speed and violence, if necessary.”
What do you think of outside intervention to force change in Iran?
Sotoudeh: I very much oppose war, but many Iranians in and out of the country have reached a level of desperation that is like being forced into a tomb without any windows. They feel that they are going to slowly suffocate, and if a bomb drops on the tomb, it will at least kill them or open a way out. However, that is a flawed choice.
First, you can’t bomb a country into democracy. War very rarely brings democratic rights to the people. Look at Iraq and Afghanistan.
Second, President Trump himself has always said that his goal is to destroy Iran’s nuclear capability. So, let’s say he attacks. The next day, the Iranian people will ask, “What happened to democracy?”
The third thing is, when human rights are systematically violated, an intervention should be based on international law, not the decision of one man. Unfortunately, meaningful action under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter has been blocked by China and Russia. Even so, the United States could try to build a global consensus, but that hasn’t happened.
If other countries really want to help the Iranian people, they can provide material support for when the internet gets cut off, and with other non-military aid.
… You can’t bomb a country into democracy.
Nasrin Sotoudeh
Kaufman: It’s a lot easier to break a country than it is to fix it. And I think the fact that the Trump administration dumped Venezuela’s democracy movement so they could make a deal for oil with the existing regime says everything you need to know about their intentions.
What is your personal connection to people who were affected during the recent protests by the government’s extreme violence?
Sotoudeh: During the Woman, Life, Freedom movement in 2022, and back in 2009 during the Green Movement, average Iranians often didn’t know people directly affected by the crackdown. But this time, everyone knows someone. And the organized level of cruelty is unprecedented.
Last week I went to a funeral at Tehran’s main cemetery, Behesht-e Zahra. It was for the brother-in-law of someone I knew in prison. He was killed at a protest by the government. It was a weekday, in the middle of the day, but a large crowd gathered in the cemetery. I was surprised when many people came up to me sharing their own stories of those they lost in the same way. When I gave the victim’s father my condolences, he said, “Please be careful. There are intelligence agents here, and we don’t want any more trouble.”
It’s a lot easier to break a country than it is to fix it.
Jeff Kaufman
I should also mention that when the protests began, people started to come to me and ask for help for their loved ones who had been arrested. Sadly, there are too many stories to tell.
One account really stuck with me. There was a young woman who went to a demonstration with a friend. They were only 17 years old. Her uncle contacted me. The friend was killed and the authorities wouldn’t release her body unless the family gave names of other protesters, which he refused to do. You can imagine the pressure and fear.
There are other cases of people in the morgue extorting money out of victim’s families in exchange for their dead bodies.
Kaufman: I have to say, in Islamic tradition, care for the dead is a very sacred practice. How obscene it is to use a dead young woman as leverage to gather intelligence. That’s grotesque.
Sotoudeh: Yes. And the point here is that this is part of an intentional insult. That’s why the supreme leader came out and admitted there were several thousand protesters who were killed (although there were actually many, many more).
I have heard that there were rooms of piled-up dead bodies, in random houses, and they would tell the parents, “Go in and find your child yourself.” Or security officials would drag dead bodies on purpose to leave a trail of blood. It is to cause maximum humiliation and pain.
Kaufman: I read that there has also been a crackdown on doctors and lawyers.
Sotoudeh: This is true. Attorneys, myself included, have long been targets of persecution by this regime. Since this uprising, at least a dozen lawyers have been arrested simply for doing their job.
I have a friend on the staff in a hospital that is very close to where I live. She told me about a famous surgeon who would normally never operate without charging big fees. During the height of the government’s attacks on the protesters, he rushed to the hospital early in the morning and operated at no charge for hours and hours. There were so many injured and dying.
The next day, all of a sudden security forces stormed into the hospital, and they arrested this surgeon and two other doctors because they had refused to take their patient’s national ID cards before surgery.
My friend told me that she has witnessed so many horrifying things over the last few weeks that she will never be the same.
Kaufman: Right now the Iranian leadership may feel that they’ve snuffed out the unrest, but what’s the long-term consequences of their brutality?
Sotoudeh: You could say we are experiencing a post-massacre silence, not a post-massacre acceptance. People are not quiet because they’re satisfied. And they won’t give up.
You know, there is a saying that every government does the worst of its killing in the first 30 minutes of its existence, and in the last 30 minutes of its existence. So the question is, what have we witnessed? Does it mean we’re at the end of the Islamic Republic or just at the beginning of its gruesome hold on to power?
Kaufman: Your wonderful husband Reza is beginning his second year in prison for his actions as a human rights activist. How did Reza and the other political prisoners react to these protests?
Sotoudeh: I’m sure you saw the statement Reza recently released in which he called for the prosecution of everyone who played a role in this slaughter and crackdown.
In the beginning, when Reza Pahlavi called for citizens to join the protests, about 40 or 50 inmates gathered in the prison yard for three days in support of the demonstrations. They would shout slogans like, “Death to dictator,” and they would stay out there after they were supposed to return to their cells. Many were punished for their defiance.
One of the things that worries us the most is that none of the new arrestees have been brought into the prison’s political ward, where Reza is held. Female protesters apparently also haven’t been taken to Qarchak Women’s Prison. Maybe some are being held in The Greater Tehran Central Penitentiary. We don’t know.
It seems like many men and women have been locked up in non-official prisons, which makes their situation even more horrifying. Several lawyers and I have been trying to track their location and status. It’s a terrible situation.
I am also deeply concerned about Reza’s well-being, and his unjust imprisonment. He should be released immediately.
My message has always been to use all non-violent means to persuade governments to uphold democracy and human rights. Small actions can have big impacts.
Reza Khandan
Kaufman: Last month you were one of 17 activists and filmmakers who signed a statement that said in part, “The mass killing of justice seekers who courageously protested this illegitimate system was an organized state crime against humanity.”
Your co-signers included film director and writer Jafar Panahi and screenwriter Mehdi Mahmoudian, both Oscar nominated for what I think is the best film of the year, It Was Just an Accident. Since then, Mahmoudian was arrested and Panahi has been threatened with arrest if he returns to Iran. I should add that you were featured in Panahi’s film Taxi, and you and Reza are thanked in the credits of It Was Just an Accident.
What is your response to the persecution of these two men?
Sotoudeh: You know that Jafar Panahi, by making the film “It Was Just an Accident,” entered a debate that has been taboo in Iran for decades. The massive and shameless killing of political prisoners and executions in the 1960s. This violence later continued in the form of enforced disappearances, prosecutions, prison sentences, assassinations and murders.
One of the common ways to prevent dissidents from staying in their homeland is to issue prison sentences. Jafar had already endured prison many times before and had chosen to stay in Iran with great resolve. This time the scenario changed. As soon as he left his country to promote his film, a prison sentence was issued to prevent him from returning to Iran. But Jafar announced that he will come home regardless of the consequences. He will not remain silent. Jafar Panahi is the cultural foundation of this society.
As for Mehdi Mahmoudian, you know that he was arrested after signing the 17-member statement. In that statement, we condemned the massacre of protesters, which is unprecedented in history, and we hold Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei personally responsible for this heinous crime. I applaud Mehdi’s courage and character. Our fear is silence in the face of oppression and tyranny.
Kaufman: I know you closely follow American politics. At the same time as the historic repression in Iran, the Trump administration has been stirring up fear in America and attacking protesters with shocking acts of violence. How do you see the state of American democracy?
Sotoudeh: It’s a very difficult question for me to answer. On one hand, as a citizen of my country, I feel responsible for the behavior of Islamic Republic of Iran. It’s my duty to challenge my government, and I have been a consistent critic of its corruption and misrule. I can assure you that this regime has never been a worthy representative of the Iranian people. When it comes to President Trump, there is no doubt that what he has been doing is very far from the definition of democracy. Let’s leave it at that.
Kaufman: Thousands of Americans are protesting the threat to democracy and the abuses of ICE, which is the federal immigration enforcement service. What can you say to them as a human rights activist who has experienced this struggle in so many ways?
Sotoudeh: Freedom and democracy are the most impressive legacy of human beings on earth. We Iranians have had a dream to build a more democratic society. We have stood up and we fought for it. Now that democratic rights are being threatened on a significantly new scale, we are doing everything we can to keep it alive. I know that this is exactly what Americans are doing. The only thing we can do is to keep trying.
Kaufman: I’ve asked you this a dozen of times over the years; do you still have hope?
Sotoudeh: Yes. Definitely.
At this point in our conversation, Reza called Nasrin from Evin Prison. After briefly catching up on personal matters, I was able to ask the following two questions before his line got cut off.
Kaufman: Reza, how are you able to follow events in Iran and around the world?
Khandan: Through telephone calls that we are allowed to make with family and friends. However, we don’t have access to the public mood here in prison. For example, we are told there are videos and photos of atrocities and killings and that people are in shock, but we cannot fully feel it here because we can’t actually see it. The widespread grief society is experiencing does not exist here, but we feel our own kind of grief.
Kaufman: Do you have a message for Americans challenging repression in our country?
Khandan: When governments feel threatened or threaten each other, the first thing that gets trampled is the rights of ordinary people. There was a time when officials at least spoke about human rights, just for show and without actually taking any action. These days, they don’t even do that. We see them blatantly deny human rights. My message has always been to use all non-violent means to persuade governments to uphold democracy and human rights. Small actions can have big impacts.
Reza’s call was disconnected before I could reply, but the next day we were able to follow up through written communication. I asked if he and his fellow inmates had other ways to express their concerns. Here is his reply:
Khandan: I developed a play about the brutal killing of protesters that other prisoners and I presented on Friday evening, Feb. 6 in Hall 1, Section 7 of Evin Prison. In attendance were nearly 90 inmates, both political and non-political. Guards watched in person and through security cameras, but they didn’t interfere. Strangely, sometimes there is more personal freedom inside prison than outside.
The play began with a number of garbage bags in the shape of corpses spread throughout the corridor by political prisoners.
Following this, nine of them voluntarily placed themselves inside empty bags, so the entire length of the hall was lined with body bags, some filled with garbage and some containing men.
Small signs that said, “Bodies are metaphors and are meaningful” were placed around the performance site.
Then, numbers between 6,000 and 7,000 were randomly assigned to each “corpse,” as if they were actually identifying those killed by the authorities. A placard with the words “Sepehr, Baba, where are you?” was carried by me along the corridor and among the corpses. (NOTE: based on the cry of a father searching for the body of his son “Sepehr, Baba, where are you?” has become an important slogan of the protest movement.)
At this time, a large bag containing garbage was placed in the middle of the corridor between the corpses by artist and activist Morteza Parvin. Morteza said that the Iranian government ignored the human dignity of the protesters and treated them like garbage.
At the end, 81-year-old Abolfazl Ghadiani made a speech about the killing of thousands of innocent people and expressed his hope that the perpetrators of this terrible and historic crime would be tried in a fair and competent court and punished as soon as possible.
Many prisoners were deeply affected by this presentation. Some with anger, some with tears. One prisoner said that they could barely breathe because they felt they could see a loved one who had just been killed inside the bags. Another inmate said that he could visualize each and every member of his family inside them, and that maybe one day it would be our turn.
As the program ended and night came, despite the sadness, grief and fury that the prisoners felt, we all hoped for a brighter future in which their dignity would not be violated or ignored.
I send you my love in the hope of a free and flourishing Iran.
Editor’s note: The documentary NASRIN—directed by Jeff Kaufman, narrated by Academy Award-winner Olivia Colman, and secretly filmed in Iran by women and men who risked arrest—follows the work and life of renowned human rights lawyer, Nasrin Sotoudeh.
In part to bring attention to her husband and fellow activist Reza Khandan’s imprisonment, now in year two, the international distributor has released the film for viewers to stream free in their new YouTube Doc Room.
