Resistance Has a Woman's Face.

• Position: Nargess Mohammadi - Viewpoint essay

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On June 12, 2009, elections in Iran returned Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the presidency. On that day, the Iranian people took to the streets in droves. These peaceful demonstrations were met with extreme violence carried out by the Iranian regime. Since that day, the people have not backed down--and continue to fight peacefully for their basic human rights.

This year on June 12, people all over the world joined the struggle. They marked the anniversary by calling for the release of the more than 2,500 political prisoners being held in Iranian prisons. Not surprisingly, the Iranian regime commemorated the anniversary with another crackdown on its opposition. Almost daily, I receive reports of another activist, colleague, or friend being arrested or sentenced for their work.

Just two days before the anniversary, Iranian authorities arrested human rights defender Nargess Mohammadi in her Tehran home. Nargess is the vice president of the Defenders Of Human Rights Centre, an independent organization I founded. What will happen to her is unknown, but we fear the worst.

On May 9, the lengths to which the regime will go to crush its opponents came to light. Five political prisoners were executed in secret. Not even their families or their lawyers were notified.

Shirin Alam Holi, a twenty-eight-year-old Kurdish woman, was executed along with four men. In letters from Evin prison, Shirin wrote of being tortured to confess to the charges of terrorism that were laid against her in front of television cameras. She denied the charges and refused to confess, sadly sealing her fate.

At least twenty-five other men and women now await the same fate on death row.

However, as we see time and time again, the harsher the repression, the stronger the movement grows. And as the stories of Shirin Alam Holi and Nargess Mohammadi demonstrate, women activists are at the forefront of the struggle for human rights in Iran.

This powerful feminist movement was not born out of the elections. It has been gaining momentum since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, when the regime began imposing laws that were discriminatory against women. In fact, the feminist movement in Iran predates the revolution. Women have enjoyed the right to vote in my country since 1963. That's longer than women in Switzerland.

Today, even under a repressive regime, women flood the ranks of doctors, professors, and CEOs. Women constitute more than 63 percent of university students, proving...