Dissident Provides Harrowing Account Of Iran's Prisons

I was a college student in Iran and like my brother I spent five years in the regime’s jails as a political prisoner. Long interrogations, solitary confinement, forced to witness my brother being beaten, deprived of any contact with my family, death threats and mock executions were the tortures I was placed through.

I was a college student in Iran and like my brother I spent five years in the regime’s jails as a political prisoner. Long interrogations, solitary confinement, forced to witness my brother being beaten, deprived of any contact with my family, death threats and mock executions were the tortures I was placed through.

These methods are used by the Iranian regime to obtain so-called “confessions” and forge a case against you in court, while depriving you of legal representation. I was sentenced to prison and exiled in the notorious Gohardasht Prison in the city of Karaj, west of Tehran.

During my time behind bars I was deprived of any furlough. I witnessed many crimes by the regime authorities, many executions and tortures inflicted not only on political prisoners, but also ordinary inmates arrested on other charges.

In prison I was in a ward with hundreds of other women and up close I witnessed the human rights violations they suffered. Time and again in prison I was deprived of family visits and phone calls for informing the world about the harsh conditions those women went through and the circumstances inside the prison walls. I was also deprived of medical care.