Iranian Influential Women: Mehrangiz Kar (1944-)

Mehrangiz Kar, a prominent Iranian lawyer, human rights activist and writer, has been at the forefront of the fight to defend human rights in Iran for many years. For this she has received praise, recognition and awards - but she has also paid a high price: harassment, imprisonment, exile and family tragedy.

Born in 1944 in Ahvaz, the provincial capital of Khuzestan, Kar was a well-established writer and analyst before the Islamic revolution of 1979. She regularly wrote articles about Iranian society and foreign affairs in high-profile publications including Ferdowsi magazine and the newspapers Kayhan and Rastakhiz. Photographs of her with short, uncovered hair often accompanied these articles, and were used against her as evidence of her “moral corruption” after the revolution.

When the Shah was ousted Ayatollah Khomeini ordered all newspapers and magazines to cease publication. Several years later Kar wrote that she and some of her colleagues had wrongly believed that by continuing to publish news and features they could hope to set right the path of a revolution that they believed was going in the wrong direction.

Three months before the revolution Kar received her law licence, which she used to expand her writing to include legal issues and their effects on women and their rights. At the same time she also started representing clients in the new Islamic court system. She remembers those days as being “anti-woman” and “anti-lawyer” and says that she was forced to hide her pre-revolutionary identity: “my articles, my hairdo, my dress style and my friendly relations with men that I had been proud of.”

Kar worked as a public defender in the courts and as a defence lawyer in a wide variety of cases, including ones involving adultery, divorce and human rights violations. This led her to engage in “legal disclosure” through writing articles.

Up until 2000 she worked on human rights cases and contributed to the reformist press and publications including Zanan (Women), which is generally acknowledged to be the only feminist publication in Iran. “I hoped that my articles would encourage certain religious authorities to stand up against misogynic legislation and adopt a broader outlook on Sharia law.”

When reformist President Mohammad Khatami was elected, many Iranian human rights activists, including Kar, thought their chances of fighting laws that violated human rights would improve. For this the hardliner press repeatedly accused her of encouraging prostitution, espionage and promoting “vulgar” Western culture.

Dashed Hopes and Tragedy

In 2000, after reformists gained a majority in the parliamentary elections, Kar and 16 other journalists travelled to Berlin to attend a conference called “Iran After the Elections” that was organized by the Heinrich Böll Institute. As the event’s first speaker, Kar emphasised the urgent need for constitutional reform in Iran.

But the conference was interrupted by a group of Iranian exiles who shouted “Death to the Islamic Republic!”, and female protesters stripped and danced naked on the chairs.

When she returned to Iran Kar and a number of other attendees were arrested and taken to Evin prison. She was charged with various crimes, including activities against national security, propaganda against the regime, wearing un-Islamic dress at the conference and violating religious edicts.

Kar spent two months in detention but was released after international pressure mounted. She was tried in January 2001 and sentenced to four years in prison. She appealed, but before the appeal process could go through, Kar was diagnosed with breast cancer. Under pressure from the European Union, especially the Netherlands, Iranian authorities permitted her to travel for treatment to the United States, where she remained.

Two months later Kar’s journalist husband Siamak Pourzand was arrested. His forced confession, which was broadcast on Iranian TV, showed a man that had been visibly tortured. He confessed to espionage and to having connections to the Shah’s son, who was living in exile. The court sentenced him to 11 years in prison and 74 lashes.

In 2002 Kar received the American National Endowment for Democracy's Democracy Award from First Lady Laura Bush. She has received many other awards for her human rights work and promotion of democracy, including the 2002 Ludovic-Trarieux International Human Rights Prize from France, the 2002 Hellman-Hammett Grant from Human Rights Watch, the 2001 Vasyl Stus Freedom-to-Write Award from PEN New England and the 2000 Oxfam Novib/PEN Award from the Netherlands.

In 2011 Kar’s husband was placed under house arrest after being released from prison. He was harassed by authorities on a daily basis and committed suicide.

“Siamak Pourzand had a difficult life during his freedom, essentially living under house arrest,” Kar wrote later. He had nightmares and missed his children horribly. But the security agents never left him alone. On top of this he had lost his friends as well. His friends in artistic and cultural circles were deeply hurt by his forced confessions [that implicated] them. They would hide from him. The destructive feeling of shame eventually crushed him. He either committed suicide out of anger and in response to demands made on him by security agents or, as some say, they ‘suicided’ him. Whatever it was, they had a noble human being in their claws for close to 10 years. Every time we tried to get him out of the country we encountered obstacles.”

In 2020, she and 13 other female activists who live outside Iran issued a statement in support of women who had demanded the resignation of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

Pay Attention to “Silent Deaths”

Kar is still very active and focused on the state of human rights in Iran, warning of deadly violations by the Islamic Republic that many might have overlooked. In 2023, among her other tireless activities, especially during and after the nationwide protests following the death of Mahsa Amini in the custody of morality police, Kar wrote a piece in which she discussed the “silent deaths” of jailed activists and protesters in Iran who died not in prison, but after it, whether from medical traumas or suicide caused by their experiences inside prison, or perhaps even through more shadowy attacks by unknown assailants.

She wrote: “The regime’s message is this: ‘Do not protest. Don’t do anything that would get you detained, even for one hour. Do not pin your hopes on release after your arrest. Beware: and know that we have killed you before releasing you even if you have repented dozens of times and even if a mountain of your recorded confessions exists. We will neither execute you nor leave a needle mark on your body. Your death will occur in silence. What we are releasing is a poisoned body, a turbulent and disturbed soul, that wants death more than life. Human rights organisations celebrate your freedom and imagine that your release is a result of their activities. But what we are releasing is a lifeless shell. Death comes later - when you are in the bosom of your family. Learn this lesson and do not protest! Keep your head down and yield to the regime decision-makers! Protest means death. Murder does not always happen at the gallows or by shooting bullets. We have studied the opposition for four decades and we have learned many techniques. All we need is for you to be our guest for one hour.’

“Iran’s silent deaths are more resonant and more dangerous than other threatening messages this tyrannical regime sends to its citizens. And they are more effective than the messages that it sends by executing and massacring its opposition in peaceful protests. The silence of society drives the protests deeper into the ground and frightens civil activists who have not yet become nationally and internationally well known. Those who have just taken small steps in protesting and civil activism might retreat or stop out of fear. They cannot continue their civil protests and activities in the hope that they will be imprisoned only for a short time and soon freed. That is why the security policy of ‘silent deaths’ might nip protests and civil activities by young people, especially by women, in the bud.”

Kar currently works at the Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women at Brown University in Rhode Island. She continues to write about human rights violations and women’s rights in Iran. She has also published a memoir entitled Crossing the Red Line: The Struggle for Human Rights in Iran.