The Committee to Pursue Detainees, made up of journalist and civil rights activists, published its report on the general state of recent detainees during Iran protests and the issue of handing out pills to detainees.
This statement reads in part:”The State Security Forces, in most detention centers, did not treat detainees suitably and most detainees have spoken of verbal abuse and abusive treatment by agents during their incarceration. Some of the detainees have been severely beaten.
One of the detainees who was arrested in Enghelab Street after physical clashes with agents, was beaten for hours by that same agent as a form of retaliation.
Another problem that detainees faced was lack of food at detention centers to the extent that some of them reported not being given any food for 24 hours.
Of the 400 people arrested in the first three days, more than 150 people had requested addiction-related drugs, which according to the prison rules are to be provided to detainees after the examination and approval of a doctor. But prison officials gave them methadone pills upon the request of prisoners.
Despite the fact that on the first night of detention, the names of drug users is recorded in the registry, on the second night, a large number of methadone pills were handed out to detainees. A number of detainees who did not have a history of drug use used the pills for sedation which naturally made them sick.
Some detainees also said that during the days that they were in the quarantine section, they were transferred to Evin Prison for interrogation, where they were physically and verbally abused.
According to two eyewitnesses, on Thursday, two days before Sina Ghanbari’s death, he was summoned for interrogation. After coming back, he was in high spirits and joked with his cellmates about being beaten while some parts of his body were severely bruised and battered. Sina Ghanbari’s body was found on Saturday, January 5, with a garbage bag around his neck on the ground in the restroom by prisoners who were tasked with cleaning the prison bathrooms.
