Atena Farghadani is an Iranian cartoonist, artist and women’s rights defender who graduated from Alzahra University. Atena Farghadani was arrested in August 2014 after publishing a cartoon criticising members of parliament for supporting a bill limiting women’s access to contraception and was released three months later, only to be re-arrested on 10 January 2015 after she published a video describing her mistreatment in detention. Then sentenced on 01 June 2015 by Branch 28 of the Revolutionary Court in Tehran to 12 years and nine months in prison on charges including “insulting members of parliament through paintings”, “spreading propaganda against the system” and “gathering and colluding against national security”, a sentence later reduced on appeal to 18 months. During her imprisonment in Evin and Qarchak prisons she endured beatings, strip searches, solitary confinement, and psychological abuse, including being subjected to a so-called virginity and pregnancy test after shaking hands with her lawyer, and she was finally released on 03 May 2016, having served her reduced sentence.

She was arrested again several times, including on 13 April 2024, after which she was released on 10 December 2024 from Evin Prison. Her most recent sentence, for displaying two pieces of artwork on Pasteur Avenue in Tehran, was unexpectedly reduced from six years to eight months.

Atena Farghadani received the 2015 Courage in Editorial Cartooning Award and the 2016 Václav Havel Prize for Creative Dissent in recognition of her artistic and peaceful human rights activism.