World Leaders Are Gathering at the UN as Iran Executes Its Political Prisoners .

I  was still a teenager when I was arrested in Iran for supporting the country’s pro-democracy opposition. I learned far too young what it meant to be a political prisoner,  to live behind prison walls, uncertain of what tomorrow might bring, and to watch others disappear into interrogation rooms or be taken away, sometimes never to return.

Today, I live in exile in California. I have a good life in America, far removed from the prison cells of my youth. But a part of me has never really left those cells. Whenever I hear that another political prisoner has been sentenced to death in Iran, I think of those who remain behind bars, especially the young women who may be experiencing today the fear that I knew as a teenage girl.

And I remember something else. When I was a prisoner, there were people outside those walls who raised their voices for me and for prisoners like me. I could not always hear them, but knowing that we had not been forgotten mattered. Today, it is my turn to raise my voice for those who cannot make theirs heard.

That is why, on September 22, I will join thousands of other Iranians in New York City for a rally in front of the United Nations General Assembly. We will be there to sound an alarm that the world cannot afford to ignore: Iran is once again witnessing a wave of politically motivated executions.