Shocking allegations are coming to light regarding systematic torture, rape, and psychological abuse of prisoners in Iran‘s prisons. According to a Daily Mail report, Iranian authorities and the Revolutionary Guards have been using sexual violence and torture for decades as means of intimidation, suppressing demonstrations, and extracting confessions from political prisoners.
Iran: Shocking allegations of prisoner abuse in prisons
The case of a woman using the pseudonym “Mina” is particularly telling. Speaking to The Australian newspaper, the former prisoner described how during interrogation she was beaten on the head with the Quran until she bled from her nose, while interrogators caressed her and asked which journalists she had slept with. As she alleged, one of them threatened her saying: “I will bring your 12-year-old son here and make him rape you. Then you will confess on television.”
The report cites Amnesty International findings
The report references an Amnesty International report stating that even children aged 12 to 14 suffered rape, electric shocks, and other forms of torture during anti-government protests in Iran. The organization maintains that sexual violence is systematically used for humiliation and psychological intimidation of prisoners.
“You hear people screaming, crying and begging”
Speaking to the British newspaper, a former prisoner who spent five years in the notorious detention centers of the Iranian regime about a decade ago described how she heard daily screams of women who, she said, were being raped and tortured. “You hear people screaming, crying and begging. Sometimes you imagine the voices belong to your family members. You think maybe it’s your brother or sister. They want you to hear all this and they want you to break,” she characteristically stated.
“The interrogator simply said I had to accept 60 lashes”
Another former prisoner, in her memoirs, described the systematic violence that she alleges women experienced in Iranian prisons during the 1980s. “When we arrived for interrogation, they didn’t ask us any questions. The interrogator simply said I had to accept 60 lashes. They pushed two metal beds next to each other and forced me and 15 other women to lie on them. Then he whipped all of us on the soles of our feet, as if he was too tired to punish each prisoner separately and, for his own convenience, punished us all together,” she stated.
“The butcher of Evin”
The Daily Mail also references testimonies dating from the 1980s. Former political prisoner and researcher Iraj Mesdaghi documented the case of a 14-year-old boy who, he claimed, was tortured by the notorious interrogator Mohammad Mehraghin, known as “The Butcher of Evin.” According to the testimony, the minor was led to a room where a naked girl lay on the floor and was ordered to rape her. When he refused, the interrogator allegedly tied him to a table and raped him, then told him: “Now you’re ready for a television interview.”
The report also includes allegations about two nurses from Tehran’s “Rajaei Heart Center,” who allegedly were raped and tortured by security agents for treating injured protesters. One of them suffered such severe injuries that part of her intestine had to be removed, while according to information, she was forced to sign a false statement about her abuse.
Meanwhile, the UN’s Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Iran confirmed in its report incidents of gang rape, forced nudity, and sexual abuse of those arrested during the 2022 protests following Mahsa Amini’s death in police custody.
The report also mentions the case of environmentalist Niloufar Bayani, who according to Radio Liberty endured over 1,200 hours of interrogations. She alleged being threatened with rape and death, forced to imitate animal sounds, and pressured to participate in humiliating sexual acts.
At the same time, according to IranWire, a 22-year-old woman named Afsaneh was sent to a psychiatric hospital after her interrogation in 2022 and later committed suicide. When she returned to prison, she reportedly told her cellmates: “They beat me a lot. They raped me many times.”
Additionally, Nobel Peace Prize-winning activist Narges Mohammadi, in a letter to the BBC from Evin prison, alleged that female prisoners were tied by their hands and feet inside transport vehicles and subjected to sexual abuse by male security forces.
