Reza Khandan: A Year in Prison for Supporting Women's Rights
(And the MISOGYNIST, CHRISTOFASCIST, THEOCRATIC, WAR ON WOMEN continues apace)
Reza Khandan: A Year in Prison for Supporting Women’s Rights
PUBLISHED 12/12/2025 by Jeff Kaufman
Under the threat of retaliation, Reza Khandan refuses to be silenced.
https://cdn-lblif.nitrocdn.com/dGudqkMNFXTXrXjkpgPQKThunaLAxBAM/assets/images/optimized/rev-b4b05ea/msmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Nasrin-outside-Evin-Prison-2025-1024x768.webp
Nasrin Sotoudeh holds a picture of her husband Reza Khandan outside Evin Prison in Tehran. (Courtesy of Sotoudeh)
Sunday marks one year since 60-year-old Iranian human rights activist Reza Khandan was arrested in what was clearly another official attack on his family. Political prisoners in authoritarian regimes are meant to disappear into hopeless silence, but Khandan has become a force to be reckoned with. A graphic artist by vocation, Khandan has dedicated much of his life to campaigning for social progress in Iran. He met his wife, internationally acclaimed human rights attorney Nasrin Sotoudeh, when they were working for a political journal called A Gate for Dialogue. They were married in 1995. During Sotoudeh’s time in prison on charges of “spreading propaganda” and “conspiring to harm state security” (from 2010 to 2013, then again from 2018 to 2021), Khandan raised their young children, ran his business, and regularly put himself at risk advocating for his wife’s freedom and for the causes they share.
Reza Khandan. (Courtesy of Sotoudeh)
“During my long years of imprisonment, Reza never complained,” Sotoudeh said. “He was threatened many times for supporting me, but even in the darkest days of our lives, he has always stood on the side of the truth with a courage that gives me a lot of strength.” A special focus for Khandan and Sotoudeh is the symbol of their country’s repressive laws against women, the compulsory hijab, or headscarf. Khandan said in an interview for CNN International, “When you respect a person’s individuality and freedom, it goes beyond the hijab or clothing choices. I’m not against women who want to be veiled. I am against the government mandating the hijab for all women, regardless of their faith or practices. And it’s not just about the hijab. I’m against the forced imposition of any religion or belief.” Khandan was first arrested in 2018, along with his friend Dr. Farhad Meysami, for creating thousands of handmade buttons that said, “I OPPOSE THE MANDATORY HIJAB.” The charges against them included “gathering and collusion against national security,” “propaganda against the regime” and “spreading and promoting not wearing a hijab.” Khandan served 111 days of a six-year sentence before being released on bail so he could care for his children while Nasrin Sotoudeh was in prison. A severely malnourished Farhad was freed in February 2023.
Reza Khandan and Nasrin Sotoudeh with a button that says, “I oppose the mandatory hijab.” (Courtesy of Sotoudeh)
On Dec. 14, 2024, Khandan was re-arrested at his home and taken away without having a moment to say goodbye to his family. He is now facing another two and a half years in the foul and overcrowded Evin Prison, the same facility that held Nasrin Sotoudeh for over half a decade. Until this year’s war with Israel, Evin housed between 15,000 and 20,000 prisoners. Along with inedible food and widespread vermin, inmates experience beatings, denial of medical care, months in solitary confinement, brutal interrogations, and torture. Sotoudeh said, “Reza has not been idle. As soon as he entered Ward 8 of the prison last year, he went on a hunger strike to protest the almost unlivable conditions. This prompted the prison authorities to take steps to improve some of the conditions.”
. . . .
Reza Khandan (second from left) with his family: son Nima, daughter Mehraveh and wife Nasrin. (Courtesy of Sotoudeh)
. . . . .
Nasrin Sotoudeh holds a photo of her husband Reza Khandan, who was arrested in his house on Dec. 13, 2024, and taken into custody.
. . . .
Reza Khandan and fellow activist Farhad Meysami print buttons that say, “I oppose the mandatory hijab,” in Farsi. (Courtesy of Sotoudeh)
. . . .
Reza Khandan and Nasrin Sotoudeh. (Courtesy of Sotoudeh)
“The crime for which Reza Khandan is in prison is the crime of love,” writes Ariel Dorfman, author, human rights advocate and friend of Sotoudeh and Khandan. “Not just love of his country and its culture. Not just love of humanity and our rights to be human. Not just love for the future. But also, the real reason why he is being punished: Reza loves the extraordinary Nasrin with whom he shares a life, a land, and a cause. How those who persecute Reza must fear his loyalty and steadfastness. He will prevail.” Everything in the previous 12 months, and in his life, shows that the Iranian regime will crack well before Reza Khandan bends an inch. “I will continue until I achieve legal rights, restore my family’s dignity, and change the conditions of the prison administration,” Khandan wrote. “May the shadow of terror and tyranny be removed from our beloved country one day. And finally, I would like to add: ‘I object to the compulsory hijab!’”
https://msmagazine.com/2025/12/12/reza-khandan-prison-womens-rights-iran-nasrin-sotoudeh/