Female prisoners in a notorious Iranian prison are reportedly tortured, interrogated for hours on end and repeatedly threatened with execution.
Inmates in Iran‘s Evin prison are ‘interrogated for 10 to 12 hours every day’ and threatened with beatings and even executions, prisoner Nasim told the BBC.
Nasim, 36, was put into solitary confinement for the first four months of her time at the notorious jail, where she spent her days in a tiny, windowless cell with no bed or toilet.
The only contact had with people she had during that time was with her interrogators, who allegedly tortured her to make false confessions.
The hairdresser said she thought she would ‘die and no-one would know’, with interrogators repeatedly threatening her with the death penalty.
Other inmates said that Nasim had cuts and bruises on her body when she came out of solitary confinement.
Nasim was arrested in April 2023 after joining the ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ protests that followed the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in September 2022.
Tens of thousands of people were taken into custody and one of Nasim’s friends was reportedly killed in the government crackdown.
Female prisoners in a notorious Iranian prison are reportedly tortured, interrogated for hours on end and repeatedly threatened with execution
Inmates in Iran’s Evin prison are ‘interrogated for 10 to 12 hours every day’ and threatened with beatings and even executions, prisoner Nasim told the BBC
A picture obtained by AFP outside Iran, shows people gathering next to a burning motorcycle in the capital Tehran on October 8, 2022. Iran was torn by the biggest wave of social unrest in almost three years, which has seen protesters, including university students and even young schoolgirls chant ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’
Nasim had been charged with distributing propaganda and drawing arms against the Islamic Republic.
She had to spend nearly 500 days in prison detention waiting for her sentence, constantly being threatened with execution by the interrogators.
The 26-year-old was sentenced to six years in prison and was given 74 lashes as well as 20 years in exile in a small town far from Tehran.
Another woman arrested following the protests is Rezvaneh, who was detained alongside her husband in 2023.
Both were jailed in Evin, which has men’s and women’s wing. The latter houses about 70 prisoners, most of whom were arrested on political charges.
The inmates are cramped into three-high bunk beds in four cells of up to 20 people, where they are reportedly left ‘freezing’ in the winter and sweltering in the summer.
During Razvaneh’s interrogations, they told her that her husband would be killed and that they would ‘hit him so much that he would turn black like coal, and purple like an aubergine’. Rezvaneh was also put through solitary confinement.
After four months in the prison, Razvaneh surprisingly found out that she was pregnant after she and her husband, who is still jailed in Evin’s men’s wing, were allowed to meet in private on occasion, according to the BBC.
As Razvaneh got closer to her due date, prison authorities gave her permission to temporarily leave prison for the birth of her baby girl, which she had in October.
The inmates at Evin are cramped into three-high bunk beds in four cells of up to 20 people, where they are reportedly left ‘freezing’ in the winter and sweltering in the summer
Iranian women inmates sit at their cell in the infamous Evin jail, north of Tehran
While her husband was not allowed to temporarily leave the jail with her, she has been able to visit him with their baby.
But Razvaneh is due to be recalled to prison to serve the remaining four years of her five-year sentence.
Her daughter will likely be allowed to stay with her until the age of two, after which babies are usually sent to live with a close relative or they are placed in a children’s home.
A third inmate, human rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi, was temporarily freed earlier this month on medical grounds due to her life-threatening heart and lung conditions.
At Evin, Narges had to fight for access to a doctor and reportedly had her treatment blocked several times after refusing to wear a headscarf to a medical appointment.
Prison authorities only gave in after Narges’ fellow prisoners went on a hunger strike for two weeks.
Narges was released from prison on December 4 after undergoing a complex surgery that saw part of a bone in her right leg removed over cancer fears, her supporters said.
Another inmate, human rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi (pictured), was temporarily freed earlier this month on medical grounds due to her life-threatening heart and lung conditions
A former inmate in the notorious prison is British-Iranian national Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe (pictured), who was imprisoned in Iran for six years
Video footage showed the 52-year-old taken out of the back of an ambulance, her black hair fanned out without the required hijab, or headscarf, covering it as she called out into the street. Her right leg was covered in a fabric cast.
‘Hello freedom!’ she shouted. ‘Women, life, freedom! Freedom is our right! Long live freedom!’
Campaigners said she would be free for 21 days, but would have to serve the remaining prison time later.
Narges is serving 13 years and nine months on charges of collusion against state security and propaganda against Iran’s government.
She has kept up her activism despite numerous arrests by Iranian authorities and spending years behind bars.
Narges suffered multiple heart attacks while imprisoned before undergoing emergency surgery in 2022, her supporters say. Her lawyer last month revealed doctors had found a bone lesion that they feared could be cancerous.
A former inmate in the notorious prison is British-Iranian national Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who was imprisoned in Iran for six years.
Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe said about her time at Evin: ‘I spent nine months in solitary confinement with very little access to anything. Being claustrophobic, solitary was a horrific experience.’