Chapter 4
Humanitarian Work Under Surveillance
Iran has the world's second-highest number of land mines - approximately sixteen million - left over from the war with Iraq. These deadly remnants regularly claim victims, particularly farmers and children in rural areas. The government has neglected proper mine removal efforts and censors news coverage of casualties to hide its inaction. To address this neglected crisis, I established the Mine Clearing Collaboration Association, Iran's first demining NGO, with dual aims: making land mines a topic of national conversation to pressure the government into action, and providing financial assistance to victims struggling with the cost of prosthetics and lost income.
In February 2004, a middle-aged man claiming to be a government official visited my law office accompanied by someone he introduced as an American professor from Stanford. The official explained that international sanctions prevented Iran from importing advanced mine-removal equipment because they qualified as "dual-use" goods. He claimed to have designed an effective mine-detection device but needed me to purchase a key component that manufacturers wouldn't sell directly to the Iranian government. When I asked about the component's nature, he admitted it could be used for making centrifuges.
Though I initially considered helping - motivated by my desire to prevent senseless injuries to children - something about the encounter left me uneasy. While in Paris, I consulted my friend Dr. Karim Lahidji, who advised me to avoid such dealings and focus instead on helping mine victims. Years later, as Iran's nuclear program became international news, I realized these men might have been intelligence agents attempting to exploit my international stature for a shady transaction.
My land mine initiative led to an unexpected opportunity when Nobel Peace laureate Jody Williams invited me to the 2004 International Campaign to Ban Landmines conference in Nairobi. There, along with Wangari Maathai (2004 Nobel Peace Prize winner), we three women laureates decided to establish what would become the Nobel Women's Initiative in 2006, harnessing our collective influence to improve women's conditions worldwide.
In spring 2005, while visiting clients at Evin Prison (where I had once been detained myself), I encountered Akbar Ganji, a prominent reformist journalist imprisoned for exposing state complicity in political assassinations. Finding him without legal representation, I immediately drafted a power-of-attorney document and took his case. When Ganji began a hunger strike, Tehran's notorious prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi barred me from visiting him and falsely claimed hunger strikes were illegal in Iran.
Chapter 5
The Rise of Extremism Under Ahmadinejad
In September 2005, early in his presidency, Ahmadinejad addressed the UN General Assembly, defiantly declaring Iran's right to nuclear power and condemning America's "nuclear apartheid." Watching him from my living room, I felt a sense of dread. His smirk and pleased indifference to world leaders' dismay revealed a man who relished confrontation. This was when my constant anxiety first set in - the awareness that things could go disastrously wrong.
During the first two years of his presidency, Ahmadinejad enjoyed great freedom with unconditional support from the supreme leader. Beyond seducing the poor with cash handouts (envelopes containing 100,000 tomans, about $50), he nurtured Iranian nationalism with outlandish claims - once declaring that a high school girl had "discovered nuclear energy" in her kitchen using bazaar parts, sending bodyguards to protect this supposed genius.
My work continued attracting government attention. Mr. Mahdavi, an intelligence agent who used a fake name, would visit my office to discuss "concerns." During one visit, he objected to my representation of journalist Roozbeh Mirebrahimi and my public criticism of Iran's judicial system. "America is our enemy, and it takes advantage of such criticisms," he said. I replied simply: "If the state stops behaving badly, then I won't have anything to say."
That winter, as Ahmadinejad's persecution widened, his administration gave free rein to religious extremists in state militias. In February 2006, these forces attacked Sufis during an Ashura ceremony in Qom, planted whiskey bottles and women's underwear as false evidence, then demolished their prayer hall with bulldozers. State television falsely claimed the Sufis had been drinking alcohol and having illicit sex.
When I agreed to represent the wounded Sufis, the case was deliberately delayed and eventually transferred to the Special Court for Clergy, where neither I nor my colleagues could represent them. The state's persecution of even these peaceful mystics showed how Ahmadinejad had reversed Khatami's more tolerant course, encouraging the most intolerant attitudes and signaling that punishing religious "deviants" would face no state opposition.
Chapter 6
Women's Rights: The One Million Signatures Campaign
On June 12, 2006, a bright summer afternoon, women's rights activists gathered at Tehran's Seventh of Tir Square. Under clear skies, around seventy people assembled, having earlier distributed pamphlets titled "Why We Don't Consider the Present Laws Just." The document used simple language and everyday examples to explain why Iran's laws were problematic for women. The activists carried rolled-up banners in their handbags, waiting for more people to join before displaying them.
Just before four o'clock, police vehicles converged on the square from multiple directions. Policewomen in black chadors and male officers in riot gear flooded the area, violently grabbing protesters and releasing tear gas. One particularly brutal policewoman dragged collapsed women by their headscarves toward waiting vans. The authorities crushed the protest before it began, arresting key organizers including a former parliament member.
This crackdown led activists to develop a new strategy - the One Million Signatures campaign. Noushin Ahmadi Khorasani and Parvin Ardalan visited my office to discuss the initiative, which would protest legal discrimination against women through door-to-door conversations across the country. Despite authorities blocking their launch meeting, they began the campaign in the street. The movement spread nationally, raising awareness about discriminatory laws among women of all backgrounds.
The authorities responded with arrests, charging activists with "conspiracy against national security." As their defense lawyer, I challenged these absurd accusations. Despite many organizers receiving prison sentences, the campaign succeeded in transforming legal discrimination into a national debate and achieved small legal victories, including amendments to inheritance laws and blocking regressive family legislation. Iranian society was growing more progressive, gradually pulling the regime along with it.
What made this movement particularly effective was its grassroots approach. Rather than relying on elite activists in Tehran, the campaign trained ordinary women to explain legal discrimination to their neighbors, friends, and family members. By framing the issues in everyday terms - a mother's inability to make medical decisions for her child without the father's permission, or a woman's lack of equal inheritance rights - they made abstract legal concepts tangible and personal for millions of Iranians.
Chapter 7
Escalating Persecution and Surveillance
By winter 2007, I no longer went anywhere alone. I carried pepper spray purchased abroad, fearing not thieves but spies. The state had summoned me to explain why I'd shaken hands with French President Jacques Chirac - a complaint I ignored. Under Ahmadinejad, censorship tightened, activists faced increased harassment, and public debate narrowed dramatically. Even books previously approved were banned. The vibrant political atmosphere that made Iran unique in the region was fading.
Surveillance became blatant - first a shoeshine man appeared on my quiet residential street, then a new newspaper kiosk opened strategically positioned to monitor my office. A former political prisoner client confirmed my suspicions when he recognized a court interrogator inside the kiosk. I was being watched constantly. Meanwhile, the authorities forced my husband Javad into early retirement after thirty years as a senior engineer - another way to punish me through my family.
The forced retirement of Javad was a painful blow - though technically eligible after thirty years of service, he had no plans to stop working. The human resources manager directly told him the Ministry of Intelligence had ordered it because of my activities. Though Javad accepted this gracefully, I felt deep guilt that my work had derailed his career. It was an early sign the state would not permit us to flourish together.
When the Baha'i community leaders were arrested, no lawyer dared take their case - representing them was considered too dangerous even for lawyers who defended feminists and democracy activists. The Baha'is exist in a legal no-man's-land in Iran, facing severe persecution as heretics despite being the country's largest religious minority. After accepting their case, hard-line websites falsely claimed my daughter Nargess had converted to the Baha'i faith - a serious accusation carrying the death penalty for apostasy.
To protect myself while defending the Baha'is, I sought help from Grand Ayatollah Montazeri, a liberal cleric kept under virtual house arrest for opposing the regime's abuses. He issued a fatwa declaring it not only permissible but a duty to defend innocent Baha'is. Despite this religious protection, I was denied access to my clients for a year and faced hostility from investigators who couldn't understand how a Muslim could defend Baha'is. Though the prosecution had no evidence of espionage against my clients, they were sentenced to twenty years in prison - punished solely for their faith.
Chapter 8
The Siege Begins: Closing the Human Rights Center
That summer, I received an unexpected visit from intelligence agents. Mahdavi arrived with a new handler, Mahmudi, who would be "taking over my file." Mahmudi was in his mid-thirties with light brown eyes, fair skin, and the requisite pious stubble. His cologne arrived before he did, and his pointy shoes betrayed working-class aspirations to urban sophistication.
He interrogated me about my human rights work, particularly objecting to our reports to the United Nations and our election monitoring. When I explained that human rights work requires peace and that we'd established the National Peace Council during Bush's threats against Iran, he suddenly lost patience: "Kick all of these people out of your office. Don't let them back in again." When I refused, insisting these were distinguished Iranians I respected, he sneered that without my protection, they would "melt and disappear like a snowball in the sun." Though my colleagues believed my Nobel laureate status protected me, Mahmudi had made destroying me his personal mission.
On December 10, 2008, his sabotage escalated when security agents stormed our office just before our planned celebration of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights' sixtieth anniversary. Without warrants, they demanded to seal our premises, filming everything while threatening arrest. When our secretary Jinoos bravely attempted to film them in return, they threatened to handcuff her - a particularly dangerous situation given her vulnerable status as a Baha'i.
The closure of the Defenders of Human Rights Center devastated Tehran's activist community. As the only NGO with proper office space, our center had become the intellectual and social hub - the "human rights canteen" - where activists gathered to debate and share news. Despite my natural inclination to persevere, standing before our sealed doors that evening, I allowed myself to feel the weight of this setback.
A week later, authorities discovered Jinoos was Baha'i and arrested her, holding her for about a year before later imprisoning her father solely for his faith. Meanwhile, we discovered that intelligence agents had rented the apartment next to our office months earlier, likely installing listening devices to monitor our conversations. Despite knowing exactly what we did - legitimate human rights work, not plotting against the regime - they shut us down anyway.
Chapter 9
The Stolen Election and the Point of No Return
In June 2009, Iran held a presidential election that would change the course of the nation's history - and my life. The campaign period had been remarkably vibrant, with supporters of reformist candidates Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi filling Tehran's streets with green ribbons, balloons, and flags. Young people spent evenings in political discussion, and the energy seemed clearly against Ahmadinejad, whose popularity had plummeted due to economic mismanagement and increased repression.
On election eve, I found myself in a taxi at one of Tehran's busiest intersections. Young campaigners in green headbands moved between stalled cars distributing flyers. When they recognized me, they eagerly asked who I would vote for. "I'm voting for freedom," I replied, which they interpreted as support for their candidates.
The next day, while in Majorca for a speaking engagement, I received shocking news: despite massive turnout that should have favored the reformists, Ahmadinejad had been declared the winner with 24 million votes. The count had come suspiciously quickly, and neither reformist candidate had even carried their hometowns - unthinkable in Iranian politics. When Supreme Leader Khamenei immediately congratulated Ahmadinejad, it sealed the outcome.
This time, however, Iranians refused to accept the results. On June 15, millions flooded Tehran's streets in the largest demonstration since the 1979 Revolution, marching silently with signs reading "Where is my vote?" Though largely peaceful, authorities fired on protesters in two incidents, killing at least two young people. Foreign journalists were ordered to leave Iran, while Iranian journalists were arrested or threatened.
From my hotel room in Majorca, I frantically called colleagues, learning some had been arrested while others had gone into hiding. Internet connections were being throttled. "This is a coup. Don't come back to Tehran right now," one colleague warned. Both Javad and my brother urged me to stay away.
Torn between safety and solidarity with my people, I boarded planes to Madrid and Amsterdam, where I stood at the Tehran departure gate, watching others board without fear. At the last moment, I pulled back, making perhaps the most fateful decision of my life. Instead of returning home, I called my daughter Nargess and took a train to her home in The Hague. I didn't know then that I would never see my home, or my country, again.
Chapter 10
Exile and the Unraveling of a Life
The world watched transfixed as Iran's demonstrations unfolded. From my daughter's riverside flat, I observed how the regime deployed its full arsenal against protesters. Police, security agents and paramilitaries beat peaceful demonstrators and fired on unarmed crowds. When a young woman named Neda Agha-Soltan was shot by a militiaman, the footage went viral, her face becoming iconic of the regime's brutality.
I spoke regularly to international media throughout this period, staying in close contact with colleagues in Tehran. Soon the authorities began summoning two of my colleagues for interrogations, sending me a message: "Tell Ebadi that if she stays neutral about this, we'll leave her alone. After things settle down, we'll even let her open the center back up. But the condition is that she stay silent."
I replied: "I haven't supported any particular politician in this fight. What I support is the people, and their rights as citizens. Of course I cannot stay silent in the face of these ongoing killings and brutality. The center has value as a sanctuary. If I am to be silent and not defend my people, why would I need an office?"
In August 2009, Nargess and I visited Negar in Atlanta before Nargess began her PhD program in London. I maintained regular contact with Javad through a special SIM card he'd purchased under someone else's name to avoid surveillance. When I couldn't reach him during our usual time one Monday, I initially wasn't concerned, assuming he was at our orchard cottage where reception was poor. But after a week of silence, I grew worried.
When Javad finally called, his voice was tense and shaky. He described being lured to an apartment where intelligence agents had set up a sting operation, filming him in a compromising situation with a woman. They arrested him, subjected him to lashing for drinking alcohol, and placed him in solitary confinement. A judge sentenced him to death by stoning for adultery, refusing his request for legal representation.
Intelligence agent Mahmudi then demanded Javad denounce me on camera in exchange for his freedom, giving him a script stating I didn't deserve the Nobel Prize and was working for Western powers against Iran. Though freed from prison after recording the forced confession, Javad remained broken, his passport confiscated, unable to leave Iran.
Chapter 11
Dispossession and Resilience
In December 2009, Mahmudi and his agents confiscated our safe-deposit box at Tejarat Bank. When Javad attempted to access it, the bank manager apologetically explained that the judiciary had ordered them to deny access. When Javad called to tell me they'd taken my Nobel medal, the news created an international uproar. The Norwegian foreign minister called it "shocking" - the first time a Nobel Peace Prize had been confiscated by national authorities.
Shortly after Christmas that year, Mahmudi's agents arrived at my sister Nooshin's house at 11:30 PM. Despite her protests, they searched her home, confiscated laptops, and took her for "questioning" that supposedly would last only hours. They kept Nooshin in solitary confinement for twenty-one days, verbally abusing her and demanding information about my finances, contacts, and activities.
As I traveled through Europe working to ensure Iranians had access to unbiased news, the siege against me continued in Tehran. The authorities now targeted me financially, claiming my Nobel Peace Prize money was taxable despite Iranian law exempting awards from taxation. My colleague Nasrin Sotoudeh took up my defense, discovering numerous discrepancies in the case, including backdated documents with incorrect addresses. For defending me and her other human rights work, Nasrin was sentenced to six years in prison, banned from practicing law, and forbidden from leaving the country for twenty years.
With all my colleagues either imprisoned or in hiding, no lawyer dared represent me. The state moved with unprecedented efficiency to seize my properties, selling them at artificially low prices. Our commercial flat housing the Human Rights Center was valued at just $70,000 - a fraction of its worth in Tehran's expensive real estate market. This ensured my tax debt would remain unpayable while allowing regime associates to acquire valuable properties cheaply.
For our beloved orchard outside Tehran - where we had planted cherry, pomegranate, plum and walnut trees over decades, where my children grew up - I asked close friends to bid at the auction. They succeeded, and while I would never again see those trees heavy with spring fruit, at least Mahmudi and his accomplices wouldn't either.
Despite these traumas - Javad's arrest, my sister's detention, our dispossession - I refused to be silenced. I established the Centre for Supporters of Human Rights in London, creating a network connecting Iranian lawyers inside and outside the country. Though the divorce from Javad brought profound emptiness, I intensified my work to avoid depression, finding purpose in continuing to advocate for the Iranian people from exile.
Chapter 12
The Enduring Struggle for Iran's Soul
In summer 2015, Iran signed a historic nuclear agreement with the West after years of negotiations. For ordinary Iranians living under threat of military attack and devastating sanctions, the deal brought hope. Britain reopened its embassy in Tehran as companies rushed to prepare for economic opportunities. While moderates like Rouhani and Zarif believe the deal advances Iran's interests through economic growth and stable international relations, hardliners remain committed to uranium enrichment at any cost.
Despite the agreement passing through both governments, Iran continues interfering in neighboring countries, asserting itself as the leading Shia power against Saudi Arabia's Sunni influence. Supreme Leader Khamenei still declares America the enemy - a stance that has long justified suppressing domestic opposition. While I don't wish to appear cynical during this hopeful moment, those with experience of this government know the Islamic Republic won't transform overnight.
My purpose in writing this book is to bear witness to what Iranians have endured over the past decade. Through my story, you can see how a police state disrupts lives and families. If a Nobel Peace laureate with media access and legal expertise can be treated this way, imagine what happens to ordinary Iranians without such resources. I share my experiences on behalf of countless faceless political prisoners and prisoners of conscience in Iran - journalists, lawyers, women's rights activists, and students whose talents and dreams are wasted in prison cells.
Despite living in exile, I still dream of returning to Tehran, to the orchard Javad and I planted. I've lost more than I thought possible, but continue working for Iran's freedom from afar, carrying the words of poet Simin Behbahani: "My country, I shall build you again, even if with bricks of my life." Despite this oppression, the Iranian people have not lost hope for change or their determination to achieve it. Like all Iranians, I watch and wait, hoping for a path that ultimately leads to freedom.
