At just 15 years old, during the 1979 Iranian Revolution, Shirin Nariman became involved in pro-democracy activities. Less than two years later, she was arrested for her activism, enduring severe torture in Evin Prison in Tehran.
"I was arrested at my senior high school. I was 16 and a half," she shares. "At the time, I was the youngest, but then very soon, other younger people joined us."
Shirin witnessed the brutality of the regime's mullahs and enforcers of Sharia law firsthand. Every morning, the guards would call out a list of names for interrogation, and those whose names were called knew they were going to be tortured.
"In prison, I had gone through a lot of tortures," Nariman reports. "I was buried up to my neck, and … they played Russian Roulette on my head."
The guards called out another list in the afternoon.
"We knew those lists as being called out for executions," she remembers. "They would ask them to bring their stuff with them, and we all knew what it meant."
During her imprisonment, she witnessed the executions of children, elderly women, and pregnant prisoners, so Nariman was understandably thrilled when she heard the news that Ayatollah Khamenei was dead.
"To me, a monster, a dictator is gone," she says. "And to me, that is the end of the tyrannical regime of Iran."
As she believes Iran is on the verge of regime change, Nariman has a couple of dreams for her country. As a former political prisoner, "the abolition of any capital punishment" is at the top of the list.
"No executions," she insists. "My hope is that one day we have a free Iran, a secular, democratic republic of Iran."
