Remember – Episode Eight: Shohreh Pakrovan, the Mother of Justice Seeker Reyhaneh Jabbari; I Am Alive to Seek Justice

Shohreh Pakrovan, a grieving and justice-seeking mother, sits in her apartment in Germany. We have arranged an interview in advance. She is dressed in a neatly tailored navy blue suit, her silver hair shines, and the lines on her face are a mixture of affection and bitterness. She smiles and articulates Persian words with the sweetness and eloquence they deserve. Behind her, in the library, there is a small framed photo capturing her daughter Reyhaneh's childhood days. In this photo, Reyhaneh is a carefree little girl in a white cotton dress with small pleats typical of children's clothing. A few shelves higher, a framed picture of a woman in a dull, floral prison chador leans against the library wall. This few-shelf distance between the little girl in her joyful childhood dress and the woman with piercing and heavy eyes in the dark prison chador of the Islamic Republic marks the long path Shohreh Pakrovan has traversed in life; the long road of seeking justice. Reyhaneh Jabbari is one of the youngest victims of sexual assault, abuse, and systematic violations of women's rights in the courts of the Islamic Republic. In July 2007, at just 19 years old, her trial for murder made headlines in Iran's newspapers. Reyhaneh accepted the charge of involuntary manslaughter. The victim had attempted to drug this young girl to assault her, but Reyhaneh defended herself. A knife struck the victim's shoulder. Reyhaneh fled the scene and immediately called for an ambulance to transfer the man who intended to assault her, but ultimately, the victim, an employee of the Islamic Republic's Ministry of Intelligence, died from excessive bleeding. Reyhaneh spent seven years in prison, and her mother, Shohreh Pakrovan, dedicated her life outside the bars to prove her daughter's innocence and save her from the death penalty imposed by the Islamic Republic's judicial system. It did not happen... Many organizations and human rights activists from around the world called for a review of the unjust death sentence for Reyhaneh, but the Iranian government was determined to execute her. Reyhaneh Jabbari was hanged at the age of 26 while under immense pressure from interrogators to confess on the Islamic Republic's state television that the Ministry of Intelligence employee had no intention to assault her! On November 4, 2014, many media outlets around the world headlined: Reyhaneh Jabbari has been executed! Her body was buried in a completely controlled and security-heavy environment, and Shohreh Pakrovan could only see her innocent daughter's face for a few moments as it was buried under mounds of earth. Now, after nine years, she has participated in the program 'Remember' and states that she was forced into silence in exchange for being allowed to bury her daughter herself, but she was only allowed to see her daughter's face for a few moments surrounded by government agents. If she had known, she would never have remained silent; she would have screamed, just as she has screamed for the past nine years and has not feared the threats and harassment of the government. Today, she introduces herself as a '24-hour justice seeker.' At the end of the conversation, she looks at her watch and says, 'Unfortunately, it suddenly becomes night here.' I think to myself that means she will have dinner alone. I remember that in the middle of the conversation, she said, 'If I cook food to eat, it is to stay alive and be able to seek justice because I have nothing else to do in this world; except for seeking justice against the Islamic Republic.' I invite you to listen to my conversation with Shohreh Pakrovan, the justice-seeking mother, in the eighth episode of the multimedia series 'Remember.' Ms. Pakrovan, it has been nine years since the Islamic Republic executed your young daughter, Reyhaneh Jabbari, at the age of 26. After these nine years, I want to start with the question of where you are now? Where do you stand? How are you and what are you doing these days? Shohreh Pakrovan: The promise I made to Reyhaneh was that I would never lose sight of her innocence and the justice that was denied to her; I am still on that path. When the grave digger was piling dirt on her body, I was in complete silence, but inside me was filled with screams, and I promised her that as long as I live, my eyes will be her eyes, my hand will be her hand, my throat will be her throat, and my legs will be her legs, and as far as I can, with everything I have learned and experienced in my life, I will fight for this cause. This was the promise I made to Reyhaneh at her burial. Well, this sentence you say is a very heavy and difficult one, Ms. Pakrovan! We have seen many justice-seeking mothers over the years who have stood with such courage and determination for justice. One of them is you, and we are also aware of the fragile emotions of motherhood on the other side. I want to know where this strength in you came from and how it formed that you could stand so firmly at the burial of your beloved child and make such a promise to her; where does this come from, Ms. Pakrovan? Pakrovan: Look, every mother, in my opinion, has that fragility you mention. I have it too. All mothers have feelings in their solitude that when they enter the struggle for justice, they do not want to talk about that fragility and moments of loneliness with anyone. But for me, if I have such strength, I learned it from Reyhaneh. I am sure we can generalize this example to other mothers as well. If Gohar Eshghi does not draw her strength from Sattar Beheshti, from whom does she draw it? How can a woman like Gohar Eshghi have such analysis? How can she be so fearless? And how can she understand the daily issues of society? I think all justice-seeking mothers are mothers who are born from their children. They have been born and learned many things from their children. Now, a mother like Gohar Eshghi or the mother of Pouya Bakhtiari or the mother of Behnam Mohajoubi or Pejman Gholipour, and others, are those who have been shocked because a short time has passed from when their child was alive to when they were killed. But for me, it was seven years and four months. Throughout this process, when I saw this 19-year-old girl become a woman who is not afraid and is not only thinking of herself but has started fighting from behind prison walls to save her fellow inmates from death; well, I learned that I can do something too. I learned from Reyhaneh, and I have no doubt that all justice-seeking mothers are similar and all seem to draw strength from that invisible umbilical cord to their children. This is a very powerful manifesto that you and other justice-seeking mothers present. It seems that seeking justice has become your very life. I hope I can interpret it correctly, but my feeling is that life has no meaning or purpose for you other than seeking justice, and this is a completely exceptional situation that a human can face. Pakrovan: I must say, dear Fahimeh, that I have no work in life other than seeking justice. I have no goal in life other than seeking justice. I had everything in life, and my life had many ups and downs. It had good and bad, and I have gone through all of these. I have no other wishes in life except for the fruition of this justice-seeking, and I have put all my energy into it. I have studied and have work experience. Everything I have, I have dedicated with all my strength to this path; not just for myself or for my child, but I have shared my experience with others who need it. Because I have nothing else to do, and I am a 24-hour justice seeker. Like all justice-seeking mothers, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, and thirty or thirty-one days a month throughout the year, I am dedicated to seeking justice. Every movement I make is only in the path of seeking justice. Let me put it this way: if I cook food to eat, it is to stay alive and be able to seek justice. You said that I have studied and worked and had a life, and this takes me back to your life in the years before the execution of daughters in Iran. I know that you were involved in artistic and theatrical work, and I would love for you to tell us what life was like back then? Pakrovan: I graduated in the field of art. I studied theater and graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts. My entire life was in the path of art. All my friends and acquaintances were in this field. I was the director of a cultural house. I produced a large number of children's theater productions until this incident happened. When this happened, and after Reyhaneh's execution, I fell to the ground. You cannot imagine how powerless and nothing I was. But mothers who had suffered this calamity before me came to visit me. In fact, they were the ones who seemed to have healed the wound of my heart. They allowed me to lean on them and be able to rise from the ground. The words they spoke to me, the meetings we had, the tears we shed together gave me the motivation to stand up, and after that, I continued this duty for other mothers to whom this happened. I want to say this is a chain where we all help each other. Those who endure such grief support each other to be able to stand. It reached a point where, despite the strong connections I had in the art world with writers, filmmakers, directors, etc., my connection with my colleagues gradually diminished, and I saw that I no longer wanted to belong to the world of art. In fact, for me, art is now a tool in the service of seeking justice. All the experiences I gained over 35 years of artistic work are now used for seeking justice. You might not believe it, but I think fate wanted it this way so that I would learn these things for such a day. Ms. Pakrovan, when you started seeking justice in Iran, you were under a lot of pressure from the government and ultimately had to leave Iran. Did the government have expectations of you? Did they expect you to remain merely grieving and mournful and not turn this grief into a quest for your child's rights? What did they say to you during interrogations? Pakrovan: First, let me say that unfortunately, after this incident, I realized that there are not few people from the Ministry of Intelligence in the art world. I regret to say that some of my colleagues worked with the Ministry of Intelligence, and I regret to say that I realized this very late! Even one of my interrogators said exactly this sentence: 'Ms. Pakrovan, I know the spirits of artists because my husband is also an artist.' I was surprised and asked, 'May I ask what field your husband works in?' He said, 'Yes! He is a painter!' I really did not want to believe that among the artists and my former colleagues, there are those who are very close to the government, closer than we think. After that, I went to families whose loved ones had been executed. I should also say that I did not only seek out those who had been executed for political reasons because during the years Reyhaneh was in prison, I realized that the judiciary or the justice system that should establish justice is extremely incapable. I doubted all the sentences that had been issued. I went to many families whose children had been executed for retribution, talked to the families of the blood avengers, went to families whose loved ones had been executed for drug-related reasons, and also those who had been executed for religious reasons or different interpretations of Islam; I met Kurds, I met Baluchis, and I traveled to various cities and gained a lot of awareness about the essence of execution. In other words, the Islamic Republic executed your daughter, and you became a justice seeker for the history of execution and oppression and suffering. You became dangerous for the government. They probably told you this during interrogations? Pakrovan: I had several interrogators, and these few wanted me to go to Behesht Zahra, cry, and give charity! I previously had a partnership in a charity organization, and they knew that and told me to help the poor people in that charity! Read the Quran for your daughter, cry, and this crying that you have kept inside you and do not cry is not good! Cry! And eventually, my interrogator threatened me this way: 'Do whatever you want for Reyhaneh, but do it for your two other daughters because you might lose them too.' When I protested and said I consider your words a threat, he calmly nodded and said, 'Yes, consider it a threat.' You see, we are faced with such a system. I learned that all the events that happened to me had happened to others before me and will happen again after me. The Islamic Republic's actions are systematic, but each family only faces this issue once and gradually learns. That is why we have weaknesses. We justice seekers do not know that this movement that the Islamic Republic is doing to us has been done to everyone, and we can learn from the experiences of those before us. For example, they come and take the body of someone who has been executed from you and condition it on your silence to give you the body. This happened to me too. At that moment, one thinks that the ultimate wish is to take your child and bury them yourself. While you remain silent, they bring your child to you, and they are the ones who bury them. You do not even have the ability to say goodbye to your child in peace, while personally, if I had known beforehand that even if I remained silent to bury my child, it would be a mistake, then do not be silent! If I had met the mother of Farzad Kamangar earlier, I would have acted differently.