Not All Prisoners Are Political Prisoners in Iran

Counter/Argument: A Middle East Podcast

In part one of this two-part episode of Counter/Argument, we spoke with Golnar Nikpour, assistant professor of history at Dartmouth College and former Neubauer Junior Research Fellow at the Crown Center, about the expansion of prisons in 20th century Iran and took a closer look at the significance of the notorious Evin prison within Iran’s carceral system. In part two, join host Naghmeh Sohrabi as she and Nikpour discuss some of the misconceptions about how and why people end up in Iran’s prisons as well as the regime’s use of new technologies to surveille the population.
Golnar Nikpour, assistant professor of history at Dartmouth College and former Neubauer Junior Fellow at the Crown Center for Middle East Studies at Brandeis University.
Naghmeh Sohrabi, director for research at the Crown Center and the Charles (Corky) Goodman Professor of Middle East History.
More Resources

• Mohammad Ali Kadivar, Arang Keshavarzian, Nazanin Shahrokni, and Naghmeh Sohrabi, "'Women, Life, Freedom': What's New about Iran's 2022 Protests?" October 7, 2022.
• Arash Davari, Omid Tofighian, Golnar Nikpour, and Naveed Mansoori, "Is Abolition Global? Iran, Iranians, and Prison Politics (Part 1)," Jadaliyya, September 2, 2020.
• "Is Abolition Global? Iran, Iranians, and Prison Politics (Part 2)," September 8, 2020.
• Golnar Nikpour, "Drugs and Drug Policy in the Islamic Republic of Iran," Middle East Brief 119, June 2018.
• Golnar Nikpour, "All Prisoners Are Political Prisoners: Rethinking the Campaign to #FreeThemAll Beyond Borders and Beyond COVID-19," Jadaliyya, March 25, 2020.
• Golnar Nikpour, "The Criminal Is the Patient, the Prison Will Be the Cure: Building the Carceral Imagination in Pahlavi Iran

Editorial team: Naghmeh Sohrabi, Karen Spira, Ramyar D. Rossoukh
Producer: Karen Spira
Audio engineer: Levon Henry
Podcast art: Chae Lee
Theme music: "Sleeky" by ComaStudio, Pixabay
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The opinions and findings expressed in this podcast belong to the speakers exclusively and do not reflect those of the Crown Center or Brandeis University....