BBCCrouched alone on the ground, in a tiny, windowless cell, Nasim might hear what seemed like different prisoners being tortured. The guard would bang on the door and say: “Can you hear that beating? Get ready, you’re next.”
She was “interrogated for 10 to 12 hours every day” and repeatedly threatened with execution.
The naked cell, not more than two metres throughout, had no mattress or bathroom. 4 months in solitary confinement was the 36-year-old hairdresser’s introduction to Iran’s infamous Evin jail. The one folks she noticed had been her interrogators. She thought that she would “die and no-one would know”.
We now have pieced collectively accounts from a number of dependable sources to construct an image of on a regular basis life for Nasim and different girls, who’re at the moment being held in Evin jail.
Many had been among the many tens of 1000’s of individuals arrested in reference to the “Woman, Life, Freedom” protests that adopted the loss of life of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in September 2022. Mahsa had been arrested for allegedly breaking Iranian legal guidelines that require girls to put on the hijab and she or he died in police custody.
Whereas folks have spoken about circumstances in Evin after they’ve been launched, it’s uncommon to get particulars of inmates’ lives whereas they’re nonetheless inside.
UGCWhat we have now heard reveals not solely brutality, however a spot of complicated contrasts the place the prisoners proceed to marketing campaign for girls’s rights and defiantly problem restrictions imposed on them. There are stunning moments too – one inmate, often allowed time alone along with her husband, has even obtained pregnant.
Nasim – who loves rap music and make-up – was taken into custody in April 2023 after becoming a member of protests along with her pals, one in all whom was killed within the authorities crackdown. She survived interrogations “by thinking about those who died on the street”. Individuals who noticed Nasim when she got here out of solitary confinement have described cuts and bruises on her physique and the way she was tortured to make false confessions.
Rezvaneh was additionally arrested following the protests, alongside along with her husband, in 2023. They each ended up in Evin, which has separate sections for women and men. Her interrogators mentioned they might kill her husband and “hit him so much that he would turn black like coal, and purple like an aubergine”.
After solitary confinement, interrogations and humiliation, Nasim was moved to the ladies’s wing, that homes about 70 folks, together with Rezvaneh, most of whom had been arrested on political fees.
Evin jail CCTVIt’s the place the British-Iranian citizen Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcilffe, who was allowed to return to the UK in 2022, spent almost 4 years of her sentence.
A lot of the girls there have been sentenced due to their activism, for offences together with spreading propaganda, drawing arms in opposition to the regime, and endangering nationwide safety.
They reside in 4 crowded cells with as much as 20 folks in every one and bunk beds stacked three- excessive.
Dwelling collectively in cramped quarters usually causes friction, and typically fights – each bodily and verbal – escape. However the girls additionally forge tight bonds.
In winter, “everyone is freezing” and the ladies “walk around with hot water bottles” to remain heat. In summer season, they swelter within the warmth.
There’s a small kitchen space with a few hobs the place – in the event that they manage to pay for to purchase meals from the jail store – they will cook dinner for themselves to complement the essential jail meals which can be delivered to their cells.
A darkish, soiled space on the finish of a hall serves as a spot to smoke. A small cemented yard with slightly space for crops and a volleyball internet offers a bit of out of doors house.
They will put on their very own garments and are free to maneuver round their residing quarters which have two loos. Each night, they queue to make use of the bathroom and brush their enamel.
It was right here, after she had been in jail for about 4 months, that Rezvaneh came upon she was pregnant.
She had struggled with infertility for years and had given up on ever having a child. However in accordance with Evin’s guidelines, she and her husband – who continues to be a prisoner within the males’s wing – had been often allowed to fulfill in non-public and, on one in all these events, she conceived.
When she realised she was pregnant she “cried for several days”.
She discovered “the worst thing was the mental pressure and tensions inside the prison”. Discovering a quiet place within the crowded cells, the place folks spend most of their days sitting on their beds, was a relentless problem.
The jail meals left her craving apple juice, bread, and meat, which had been exhausting to pay money for. When she might get some meat from the jail store it was at the very least twice the value of meat on the surface.
The jail ultimately allowed her to have an ultrasound scan at 4 months, and docs advised her she was having a woman.
As she listened to “each heartbeat the sense of hope became stronger”. However she was afraid that the circumstances in jail would endanger the child’s well being. Rezvaneh was not simply involved about her weight-reduction plan – she has epilepsy and wanted to keep away from stress. Jail docs advised her she had a excessive danger of miscarriage.
Vida, a journalist, loves to color. She makes use of bedsheets for canvases and paints portraits of the opposite girls.
One, which was smuggled out of Evin, is of Kurdish prisoner Pakhshan Azizi who travelled to Kurdish areas of Iraq and Syria to assist victims of the Islamic State group. Pakhshan has been sentenced to loss of life, following fees of utilizing arms to struggle the Iranian regime, and there may be nice concern this sentence may very well be carried out quickly.
Vida has been warned not to attract something with a hidden that means. On one of many partitions within the yard she painted crumbling bricks with a inexperienced forest behind them. The authorities sprayed over it.
In a hall she painted an image of an Iranian cheetah operating. A number of the girls “kept saying how much good energy they got from it”. However one night time the authorities “went and painted over it” and restricted Vida’s entry to portray provides.
One in all her murals has been left intact although – big, blue ocean waves on the partitions of the hall the place the ladies go to smoke.
UGCGetting medical care has been a relentless battle for the ladies. One of many inmates, human rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi, has life-threatening coronary heart and lung circumstances.
However in jail she has needed to struggle lengthy and exhausting for entry to a health care provider. Relations mentioned that officers repeatedly blocked therapy as a result of she refused to put on a scarf to a medical appointment. The authorities solely relented after fellow prisoners went on starvation strike for 2 weeks. Narges was launched for 21 days in the beginning of December on medical grounds.
Behind bars, she and the others have carried out protests, pushing the boundaries and persevering with to struggle for his or her rights. Though the legislation requires them to put on headscarves, many refuse. And after an extended struggle with the authorities, the ladies had been allowed curtains across the beds so they may have some privateness, out of view of CCTV cameras.
One of many hardest issues for the ladies is ready to listen to their sentences. Nasim’s interrogators had threatened her with the loss of life penalty and she or he needed to wait almost 500 days to search out out her destiny.
She discovered solace in her fellow prisoners – who she has described as sisters who give her life and act as “a balm on the wounds” of her wings.
Each morning, one in all her pals pulls apart the mattress curtain and makes her rise up for breakfast.
“Each day we think of something to do, so by the end of the day we can tell ourselves, ‘We lived today,'” one in all our sources explains.
UGCOthers spend their time studying poetry, singing, enjoying home made card video games and watching TV – there are two televisions the place they will watch Iranian channels displaying drama, documentaries and soccer.
It’s these small issues that stored Nasim going whereas she waited for her sentence, underneath the fixed menace of execution. When the sentence lastly got here, she was given six years in jail, 74 lashes and 20 years in exile in a small city removed from Tehran. She had been charged with distributing propaganda and drawing arms in opposition to the Islamic Republic.
Regardless of the severity of the sentence, Nasim felt she might breathe once more, and embrace the life she thought she had misplaced.
Three different girls within the wing have been sentenced to loss of life for drawing arms in opposition to the regime or affiliation to armed teams. Nevertheless one in all them has had her sentence overturned.
Greater than 800 folks had been executed in Iran final yr – the best quantity in eight years, in accordance with Amnesty Worldwide. Most had been for crimes involving violence and medicines. A handful had been girls.
So each Tuesday, the ladies protest in opposition to executions, chanting within the jail yard, refusing to maneuver all night time and staging starvation strikes. The marketing campaign has unfold via jails throughout Iran, gaining worldwide assist. On the anniversary of Mahsa Amini’s loss of life the ladies in Evin burned headscarves.
There have been repercussions – typically the guards raid their cells and girls have been overwhelmed and injured. They will also be taken for additional interrogations, put again in solitary confinement or have cellphone calls and visits blocked. A lot of the guards are girls and “sometimes they are kind, sometimes they are cruel and hard-hearted, depending on what orders they receive from a higher authority”, says one in all our sources.
The Iranian authorities routinely denies allegations of human rights violations, saying circumstances inside Evin jail meet all needed requirements and prisoners will not be mistreated.
UGCAs Rezvaneh’s due date approached, the jail authorities allowed her to briefly depart jail for the delivery. In October, she had a child lady.
However her pleasure and reduction on the secure arrival of her daughter is mingled with concern, unhappiness and anger. Her husband was not allowed out of jail along with her, though she has been capable of take their daughter to go to him in Evin.
And due to the stress, Rezvaneh has struggled to supply breastmilk. She is anticipating to be recalled to Evin jail quickly along with her child daughter to serve the remainder of her five-year sentence – if she’s not granted an early launch, that may very well be almost 4 years.
Infants are normally allowed to stick with their moms in jail till the age of two. After that they’re usually despatched to an in depth relative, or if that isn’t potential, they may be positioned in a youngsters’s house.
However slightly than cease the inmates, one prisoner has mentioned the challenges they face have made her “braver and stronger,” supporting their perception that “the future is clear: to fight, even in prison”.
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