| Mahvash Sabet | |
| Birth Name: | Mahvash Shahriari Sabet |
| Native Name: | Persian: مهوش ثابت |
| Birth Date: | 4 February 1953 |
| Birth Place: | Ardestan, Isfahan, Iran |
| Occupation: | Poet |
| Known For: | Trial for the crime of "spying for Israel", "blasphemy" and propaganda against the Islamic Republic of Iran |
Mahvash Shahriari Sabet (Persian: مهوش شهریاری ثابت; born February 4, 1953 in Ardestan, Isfahan)[1] [2] better known as Mahvash Sabet (Persian: مهوش ثابت) is an Iranian poet and former educator. She was one of the Baháʼí 7.
Mahvash Shahriyari was born in Ardestan, Iran.[3] When she was in the fifth grade, her family moved to Tehran. Shahriyari graduated college with a bachelor's degree in psychology.
Shahriyari married her husband, Siyvash Sabet, on May 21, 1973. The couple has a son and a daughter.
Sabet first worked as a teacher, before later working as a principal at several schools and collaborating with the National Literacy Committee of Iran.[4] After the Iranian Revolution, she was barred from working in public education due to her faith.
Sabet became the director of the Baha’i Institute for Higher Education, where she worked for 15 years.[5]
In 2006, Sabet was asked to become a leader of Iran's Baháʼí community.[6] She and six other leaders "tended to the spiritual and social needs of the Iranian Baha’i community given the absence of formally elected Baha’i leadership".
While in prison, Sabet wrote poems about her experiences on scraps of paper, napkins, and paper towels, which were then given to family members during visits. Initially, she wrote poetry for her family, but with time Sabet began using poetry as a way to express and process her emotions, with it becoming a "means of survival".
In 2011, some of her poems were shared with Bahiyyih Nakhjavani, a relative living in the United Kingdom, who translated some of the poems into English. In 2013, 70 of Sabet's poems were compiled and released as a book, titled Prison Poems.
PEN International recognized Sabet as an "International Writer of Courage" in 2017, and she received honorary membership in the PEN organizations of Austria and Denmark.[7]
Sabet was first released in 2005 on the day of her daughter's wedding, but was released after questioning.
On March 5, 2008, Sabet was detained while visiting Mashhad, becoming the first of the Baháʼí 7 to be arrested. She was kept in Raja’i Shahr Prison, and later in Qarchak Prison in Varamin.[8] In February 2009, she was charged with spying for Israel, propaganda against the Islamic Republic, insulting sacred sites, and establishment of an illegal administration.[9] In June 2010, she and the rest of the Baháʼí 7 were tried, convicted, and given sentences of 20 years in prison. The group was represented by Shirin Ebadi during her trial, who said that there was "not a shred of evidence" for the crimes which they were charged with.
Sabet was held in Tehran's Evin Prison for the duration of her sentence. While in Evin, she developed tuberculosis and osteoporosis, for which she was allowed a five-day furlough in October 2016 to pursue treatment. In 2011, Sabat was included in a series of Dutch postage stamps recognizing victims of human rights abuses in Iran.[10]
In 2016, the Baháʼí 7 were informed that their sentences had been reduced to ten years, in light of a 2013 penal code reform.
She was released on September 18, 2017, a day earlier than scheduled. Sabet had to borrow a stranger's phone to call her family and let them know she had been released.
Sabet was arrested again on July 31, 2022. At the time, she was at a friend's house in northern Iran while recovering from COVID-19. A statement released after her arrest accused her and other detainees of "participating in groups to act against national security through teaching and preaching the Baha’i faith to children in kindergartens, [and] agitating against Islamic Sharia through holding coaching courses". She was beaten during interrogations, according to her daughter, and kept in solitary confinement for 42 days. She was then transferred to Evin's Ward 209, and, five months later, to the women's political-ideological ward of Evin Prison. On November 21, 2023 she was sentenced to another ten year prison sentence in Evin Prison after an hour-long trial shared with Fariba Kamalabadi, another member of the Baháʼí 7.[11]
Sabet's daughter moved to Australia in 2017, and as of 2022 she lives in Sydney with her daughter.