Yalda Moayeri's Account One Year After Arrest During Protests: I and 'Other Women' Were Sexually Assaulted

Yalda Moayeri, a photojournalist, revealed in an Instagram post that government agents sexually assaulted her during last year's nationwide protests after her arrest and 'while getting into a van.' According to Yalda Moayeri, she was arrested on the first day of public demonstrations on Hijab Street in Tehran, where agents wrapped her headscarf 'like a rope around my neck and pulled from behind' before putting her in a van. In her description of other women and girls inside the van, she noted that sexual assault 'had also occurred to other women. Almost everyone in the van was bloody and bruised and suffered various fractures.' She also mentioned that despite the agents' attempts to erase her mobile data, she managed to recover some photos related to the protests that day. According to Yalda Moayeri, her captors confiscated her mobile phone for eight months and erased all her information. The experienced photojournalist, who was imprisoned for three months last year—one month in solitary confinement and two months in a general ward—has now been sentenced to six years in prison, two months of community service in a women's park, a two-year ban on using social media, a travel ban, and a three-year prohibition from journalism. This 41-year-old photographer recently reported pressures and threats from security agencies, stating that she has not been allowed any journalistic activity for the past four years. Yalda Moayeri had previously been sentenced to two years in prison for photographing economic protests in 2017. In her message, she emphasized that photojournalists in Iran 'risk everything, including their lives, to document reality and history under the toughest conditions.' The International Women's Media Foundation awarded Yalda Moayeri the 'Courage in Journalism' award this August. According to media rights organizations, at least 95 journalists, including at least 24 female reporters, have been arrested in Iran since September last year. Currently, Iran has become the largest prison in the world for journalists, especially for female journalists.