Tag: Evin Prison

Located at the foot of the Alborz mountains in northern Tehran, Evin Prison was originally built in 1972.

With a capacity now detaining 15,000 people, Evin Prison has held hundreds of peaceful activists, journalists, intellectuals and human rights lawyers throughout its disgraceful history.

In fact anyone who dares speak out against the country’s authoritarian regime – from teachers, writers, bloggers and academics – can be thrown into the prison, with most found guilty of vague crimes on erroneous evidence and without legal representation.

Former inmates have painted a terrifying picture of treatment and conditions inside the jail, where inmates in overcrowded cells often roast in 45C heat during Iran’s sweltering summer, with no form of air-conditioning.

Many prisoners who urgently need medical care are deprived of appropriate treatment in clinics and hospitals outside the prison.

Security is so tight at the notorious jail that no one has ever escaped.

Evin Prison has became synonymous with torture and death, with thousands of reported hangings, the disappearance of numerous political detainees and an “appalling level of brutality” as detailed in reports by Amnesty International.

In the 1980s, tens of thousands of dissidents from the People’s Mojahidin Organization of Iran were hanged in Evin Prison, in one of the most savage political mass killings in modern history.