Unbroken: The 17-Year Resistance of Zeynab Jalalian
The first time they asked her name, she answered without hesitation.
"My name is Zeynab."
That name would echo across six prisons.
Through years of isolation, illness, and unrelenting psychological pressure, she would repeat it—not just as identity, but as defiance.
On February 26, 2008, Zeynab Jalalian, a young Kurdish woman, was traveling to Kermanshah when her world was torn apart. Blindfolded. Interrogated. Tortured.
Accused falsely of “armed rebellion.”
Sentenced to death—later reduced to life in prison.
But her spirit was never reduced.
“My hands smelled of flowers, yet they convicted me of picking them. But no one ever thought that perhaps I had planted them myself.”
From Kermanshah to Khoy, from Qarchak to Yazd, Zeynab has endured 17 years behind bars. Seventeen.
Each prison another attempt to break her. None succeeded. She has never confessed, never surrendered.
Not even after contracting COVID-19 due to medical neglect.
Not even when her family was harassed, her mother threatened.
Not even when the world moved on.
Instead, she wrote. She dreamed. She remembered.
“I miss my mother’s warm embrace… the scent of the soil, the inverted tulips, the oak trees of Kurdistan.”
Even in chains, she carried her homeland with her.
Its trees.
Its laughter.
Its truth.
Zeynab’s voice reaches us from inside Yazd Prison—a voice that refuses to fade.
“How much longer will you remain silent in the face of these ruthless destroyers?!”
Her words aren’t just testimony.
They are a call to action, Aa call to rise.
What You Can Do:
Donate any amount: Zeynab Jalalian. Write it. Say it. Share it.
Raise your voice: Use the hashtag #FreeZeynabJalalian to speak for those silenced by fear.
Demand her freedom: Contact rights organizations. Urge governments to act. Don’t let 17 years turn into a lifetime.
Because as long as one woman is unjustly imprisoned, none of us are truly free.
