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Fatemeh Jamalpour is a feminist freelance journalist banned from working in Iran by the Ministry of Intelligence. She has contributed to The Sunday Times, The Paris Review, and the Los Angeles Times and previously worked with BBC World News in London and Shargh newspaper in Tehran. More about this author >
Nilo Tabrizy is an Iran Correspondent for Reuters where she covers Iran using open-source investigative methods. Previously, she worked as a Visual Forensics Reporter for The Washington Post and a video journalist at the New York Times, covering Iran, race and policing, and abortion access. Her first book, For the Sun After Long Nights: The Story of Iran’s Women-Led Uprising, was Longlisted for the National Book Award for Nonfiction, and was a finalist for the Orwell Prize in Political Writing. More about this author >
Filed in the following archives
In September 2022, a young Kurdish woman, Mahsa Jîna Amini, died after being beaten by police officers who arrested her for not adhering to the Islamic Republic’s dress code. Her death galvanized thousands of Iranians—mostly women—who took to the streets in one of the country’s largest uprisings in decades: the Woman, Life, Freedom movement.
Despite the threat of imprisonment or death for her work as a journalist covering political unrest, state repression, and grassroots activism in Iran—which has led to multiple interrogation sessions and arrests—Fatemeh Jamalpour joined the throngs of people fighting to topple Iran’s religious extremist regime. And across the globe, Nilo Tabrizy, who emigrated from Iran with her family as a child, covered the protests and state violence, knowing that spotlighting the women on the front lines and the systemic injustice of the Iranian government meant she would not be able to safely return to Iran in the future.
Though they had met only once in person, Nilo and Fatemeh corresponded constantly, often through encrypted platforms to protect Fatemeh. As the protests continued to unfold, the sense of sisterhood they shared led them to embark on an effort to document the spirit and legacy of the movement, and the history, geopolitics, and influences that led to this point. For the Sun After Long Nights offers two perspectives on what it means to cover the stories that are closest to one’s heart—both in the forefront and from afar.
