Somayeh Kargar Message introducing White Torture

Ex political prisoner Somayeh Kargar sent this video to the first public in-theater screening in the U.S. of Narges Mohammadi's documentary White Torture, at the Roxie Theater in San Francisco, Nov. 12, 2023.
Excerpts:
I am Somayeh Kargar, activist in Osyan journal and collective, and former political prisoner in Iran. We're here tonight to show our opposition to prison, torture and the systematic apparatus of suppression, and also declare our solidarity and our alliance with freedom fighter prisoners. This is a necessity brought to us because of the nature of the governments, and because of our common struggle as the people of the world… and especially you the people here in the US -- are not impartial observers. All of us have common interests in eliminating this system and eradicating the cycle of repression, execution and imprisonment. As someone who has experienced imprisonment, white torture, solitary confinement, interrogation and government pressure, I'd like to tell you not to underestimate your struggle and your protest movements…. The prisoners are under harshest pressure to either surrender or be isolated. But they resist, hold up their heads, and say No! Our responsibility is to not forget about them. We should be their voice and show in any form possible that we are alongside them. When I was in Gharchak Prison, I heard that a statement was written for the freedom of political prisoners, and in it people like Ariel Dorfman was a signatory. To see this, and hear about such news, was so inspiring and heart-warming. Yes! We are the people of the world, and we create our own justice seeking movement.
The problem of prisons and political prisoners is actually the problem of the state and political power which needs to suppress [people]. The global capitalist states are compelled to generate and regenerate oppression and exploitation in various forms, and prevent people's struggle and the resistance against these conditions -- or to steer resistance and struggle in a direction that cannot achieve the level of a revolutionary transformation. Every freedom fighting and justice seeking action should reveal the roots of crime against humanity, which is in the imperialist system of oppression and exploitation. In Iran, we're struggling against the two reactionary forces of religious fundamentalism and capitalism-imperialism which are the cause of the daily pain and suffering of our people…Our struggle in Iran is not separate from the struggle to end the genocide of the people in Palestine, the destruction of the lives of the people in Ukraine, the endless pain and suffering of the people of Afghanistan, from lifting the shadow of death from the lives of the Black people, from the emancipation of women and of different sexual and gender orientations. It is not separate from the overall emancipation of humanity.