Sepideh Gholian, a courageous young journalist and leftist political prisoner held in Evin, responded to the news of Pakhshan Azizi’s death sentence confirmation with a letter posted by @burnthecage.

Her second letter of the same day was also posted on @burnthecage.

Translations to English are by IEC volunteers.

It is a war situation. Behind the high walls and barbed wire of this front, we are women who whisper the names of the executed every day and look to the future. The death sentence of Pakhshan Azizi, a woman who once gave refuge to war-torn children, has been confirmed. From now on, our ward has a woman whose absence may at any moment turn into a bitter story and a deep wound on our, and your, conscience. Pakhshan is a symbol of love for humanity. But now she is facing a death that does not stem from justice but from hatred and revenge. The same death that the Islamic Republic, with the help of Bashar al-Assad, inflicted on thousands of innocent people in Syria, and now it has once again inflicted the same bloody scythe on the children of this land.

But this is not just the story of one person. This is the story of all of us. The story of Pakhshan is tied to the story of all of us, to the story of the expectant mothers whose children's blood is on the streets, to the story of the people for whom "life" has become a dream. The Islamic Republic wants to separate us, scatter our stories, and drive us to the corners of isolation. But we know that hope lies in the intertwining of these stories, in weaving a strong chain of pain and resistance, of tears and perseverance. We cannot and will not remain silent. If we do not raise our voices today, tomorrow it will be yet another story. We want you to strengthen this chain. Don't let the story of Pakhshan be an endless story of regret and silence. Be her voice, be her story. We must fight "death" with "life". Let's make a chain out of life, against every loop of the hangman's rope. Will you take my hand to be the next link in the chain?

Part 2

"Woman, life, freedom"  is not a slogan, but an open wound; a wound that remained on the body of this land. But every time, life has grown from the heart of that wound. These three words rose from Kurdistan and reached the streets, mouths and hearts, not as words, but as heartbeats. This slogan is a roadmap to survival in a land that has made death the law.

Death thinkers want to put ropes around the throats of these three words; not only to kill two women, but to cut the roots of freedom. Varishe Moradi and Pashan Azizi, two Kurdish women, today are obvious fighters whose names are on our lips, but the shadow of execution weighs on all of us.

The commanders and agents of death have gone to the war between darkness and light. They want to bend the mountains and stop the water from flowing. Unaware that the oak roots always live beneath the soil and get strength from the blood-stained soils of this land.

They fear the voices of these women, because they know a voice that has risen from a century of oppression has been heard in the streets. They know that "Gen, Zian, Azadi" is not a slogan; it is a chain that is linked together, connecting hands to hands, and voices to voices.

Death killers try to hide their Kariya face behind fake faces. They lineup, and spray fear, to break the sound of this chain. But we know that distancing ourselves from the government is not enough. We need to turn our voices into shouts. We have to make sure everyone knows that we don't accept death.

Roots must spread to survive. Those are the arteries of this chain. This is a fight for life that has joined hands from the mountains of Kurdistan to the plains of Balochistan, from the streets of Azerbaijan to the villages of Khuzestan.

Sepideh Gholian
Evin Prison Women's Ward
22 of the month 1403

January 12, 2025