Hackers Leak Footage Of Abuse, Inhuman Conditions At Iran’s Evin Prison

(New York, N.Y.) — Surveillance footage from Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison released this week by Iranian hackers captured the brutal treatment of inmates and other harsh conditions. Videos show inmates being hit by guards and forcibly dragged along the floor. Each video has a logo embedded for Edalat-e Ali—“Ali’s Justice”—likely a reference to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The group behind the release, Tapandegan, claims it seeks to increase international scrutiny of the rampant injustices levied against political prisoners in Iran.

Evin Prison, which houses political prisoners and dual national hostages who are mostly imprisoned on spying and propaganda charges, has long been criticized for human rights abuses, including by the UN special rapporteur for human rights. Evin Prison also held U.S. hostages for months at a time during the 1979–81 Iran Hostage Crisis. It is also blacklisted by both the U.S. and the EU. 

The United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) resource Cruel and Inhuman: Executions and Other Barbarities in Iran’s Judicial System outlines the facts and figures on the use and abuse of executions and other cruel tactics by Iran’s judicial system, in addition to harsh conditions in Iranian prisons. Iran incarcerates an estimated 625 known political prisoners and members of ethnic and religious minority communities as of March 4, 2021, according to the Iran Prison Atlas of the NGO United for Iran. 

To read the UANI resource Cruel and Inhuman: Executions and Other Barbarities in Iran’s Judicial System, please click here.  

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