Many famous rights activists over decades have been known for expressing a mental liberation while in prison. Nelson Mandela sang Scottish ballads. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote a letter from an Alabama jail in defense of anti-segregation protests. Anti-communist dissident Václav Havel wrote a treatise on human rights when the Czech playwright wasn’t thinking of his next play. China’s Liu Xiaobo wrote poems, such as one about God as “the embodiment of love.”
For Iran’s Narges Mohammadi, winner of the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize and temporarily out of prison for medical care, her personal liberation – from torture, humiliation, and isolation – has been dancing.
Videos have surfaced in recent weeks showing her in Tehran’s Evin Prison rejoicing in dance and song. “Narges’s love for life, freedom and happiness is not something that can be taken away from her,” Ms. Mohammadi’s brother, Hamidreza Mohammadi, told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.
A trained singer in Persian classical music, “She sings [and] dances with the other women in the prison whenever she gets the opportunity,” the brother added.
In an interview with Agence France-Presse, Iran’s most famous activist said, “The Evin women’s wing is one of the most active, resistant and joyful quarters of political prisoners in Iran.” The dancing and singing has “kept the hope of seeing the light of freedom and hearing its voice.”
Her colleagues say Ms. Mohammadi’s best trait is not seeing herself as a victim. “Whatever punishment they impose on me,” she told CNN, “it makes no difference because I have my belief.”
“The Islamic regime,” she wrote in a book, “cannot separate a woman from her love for … her God.”
Women in Iran, many of whom choose not to wear head coverings, have been subjected to the most repression. Those sent to prison for claiming their freedoms in public find they can still express a freedom in their heart. For many, like Ms. Mohammadi, dancing is a place to start.
