Without Hesitation An Account of an Iraqi Prisoner of Conscience

On a December day in 1973, Anisa Abdul-Razzaq Abbas heard a knock at the door of the Baghdad home she was visiting. She opened the door to greet two men from the Iraqi Al-Amn security force, who immediately placed her under arrest. Her crime: being a member of the Bahá’í Faith, a religious minority in her native Iraq. Over the next six years, Anisa would spend three years in Iraq’s infamous Abu Ghraib prison and a further three years in Al-Rashaad prison before her release in 1979. During her years of incarceration, Anisa would rely on her faith to meet the myriad challenges of prison life. Day after day, she and her fellow-prisoners experienced levels of cruelty and injustice that most would find unthinkable. Separated from her husband, who was being held in the men’s prison, and from her children who were without both parents, Anisa was sustained through her darkest days by the love of her family, and by the strength and solidarity offered by her fellow Bahá’í prisoners. Anisa’s story is one of patience, courage, and steadfastness in the face of religious prejudice and state-sponsored oppression, and it is a reminder to us all of the resilient strength of the human spirit.

Alhan Irwin is an artist and illustrator who was born and raised in Baghdad. Alhan’s upbringing as a Bahá’í, and Iraq’s rich cultural heritage, have had a lifelong influence on her artistic career. She earned a degree in Technical Drawing from the University of Baghdad’s Institute of Technology. Alhan relocated to the United States in 1979, has worked as an instructor and digital artist, and has written and illustrated children’s books. She lives in New Hampshire with her husband, and she is the mother of two children and three grandchildren. Anisa Abbas was born in Baghdad, Iraq in 1925. In the 1940s, she went to Egypt, where she obtained a BA in philosophy and psychology. She returned to Iraq in 1952, where she married and had three children. Anisa worked as a high school teacher for most of her professional life. As a prominent Bahá’í in Iraq, she was sent to prison in the 1970s, where she was incarcerated for nearly six years. She and her husband Siddiq were sentenced to life in prison for their religious beliefs. She came to the United States in 1990 and settled in New Hampshire with her family until she passed away in 2011.