Marina Nemat is an Iranian author, activist, and former prisoner of conscience. A young civic activist, she was imprisoned at the age of 16 for criticizing Ayatollah Khomeini’s brutal regime. During her incarceration, she was tortured and faced execution, but was rescued by a prison guard. In exchange for her safety and that of her friends and family, the guard demanded her conversion to Islam and forced her to marry him. Nemat did so and has courageously spoken about the sexual abuse she suffered during her forced marriage. After her husband died, she remarried and fled to Canada with her new husband in 1991.