Women in Pahlavi Political Prisons

This book is a narrative account of the experiences of women political prisoners in the Pahlavi Prisons in Iran. The book is the product of the collective work of some of those women who, during the difficult years of the 1970s, entered the struggle against poverty, humiliation, dependency, and despotism, and who spent years of their youth in the Shah's prisons. The writer of these lines was herself among the political prisoners of that period.

The purpose of this collective effort is to recount part of the bitter events that befell the conscious women of Iran during the Pahlavi era-a dark period without whose portrayal it is impossible to shed light on the causes of the 1979 Revolution. This book reveals only a portion of the political-economic and socio-cultural foundations of that magnificent revolution.

To reconstruct these events and weave the fabric of the book, sources such as the official press of the time, books, and available documents have been used. However, its principal substance comes from the memories and life stories of several eyewitnesses-women who, at various moments in the history of the establishment of the women's political ward during the reign of Mohammad Reza Shah, from 1971 until its dismantling in 1979, experienced the torture chambers and prisons of the Organization of Intelligence and National Security (SAVAK). For this reason, while offering a brief look at the political and cultural activities of veteran women in earlier decades, the book's main focus is on the struggle and resistance of women during the 1970s.