Leaked Footage From Inside Iran’s Evin Prison “Torture Factory”
Rare clips of footage from inside Iran’s notorious Evin Prison have been leaked over the past few days, depicting instances of beatings, inhumane treatment and living conditions, and international prison standard violations. A hacker group named Edalat-e Ali (Ali’s Justice) began releasing the footage on August 22, which included a clip from the prison control room when the hacker group announced their presence to the guards via monitors. The control room screens read, “the Evin prison is a stain on Raisi’s black turban and white beard.”
In total, 16 videos have been released so far with majority from 2020 and 2021, though some date back to 2015 and 2016. According to Amnesty International, they have identified seven videos showing prison guards beating or otherwise ill-treating prisoners, three showing overcrowded prison rooms, three showing incidents of assault against inmates by other inmates, two showing incidents of self-harm, and one depicting a cell for solitary confinement, itself a form of torture.
Several clips from April 2021 show an elderly, emaciated man collapsing outside and being dragged back through the prison. Others depict seemingly unprovoked beatings of prisoners, with other guards jumping in, kicking and beating the defenseless prisoner.
Evin Prison, often used for Christians and political prisoners is notorious for its horrendous treatment of prisoners and was sanctioned by the United States in 2018. ICC sought to impose additional Global Magnitsky sanctions on the prison. Iranian Christian Nasser Navard Gol-Tapeh was sentenced to 10 years in Evin prison in 2018 and was denied parole in July 2021. Gol-Tapeh also penned several open letters to the regime as an outspoken prisoner. He and many other Christians suffer unjustly for their faith while guards and Iranian Intelligence seek to de-convert the many Muslim Background Believers housed inside the walls of Evin Prison.
The videos released, though heart-wrenching as they are, only show the tip of the iceberg of Iran’s human rights abuses inside Evin. Edalat-e Ali claims to have more videos, documents, and information that they plan to continue to release, seeking to once and for all refute the regime’s claim that no abuses are ongoing inside its prison systems.