"I don't have a gun; I have a pen and a camera": Mahnaz Mohammadi makes a film against the Iranian regime
OR Mahnaz Mohammadi he has learned to live with fear, but not to give in to it.
The Iranian filmmaker and women’s rights activist has been arrested many times, repeatedly imprisoned and tortured. The 2011 he was held for months in solitary confinement. The 2014 he was sentenced to five years in prison and spent months in prison again. Today he lives temporarily in Europe, on a three-year visa,…
In an exclusive interview with BBC Persian, a prisoner describes what happened when Israeli missiles tore through Iran's most notorious jail
After the attack on Evin Prison, the fate of transgender prisoners remains unknown. Some media reports claimed that 100 transgender inmates had been killed, but BBC Persian's investigation reveals that this is not true.
Reza Shafakhah, a lawyer in Iran who has been following the situation of transgender prisoners, told the BBC: "There are serious concerns about their situation. No-one knows where these prisoners are now."
#SomayehRashidi, an Iranian political prisoner, falls into a coma after months of seizures in prison. Her case highlights #MedicalNeglect in #IranPrisons, where inmates are denied basic healthcare. #HumanRights #KokchaNewsAgency 🚨🏥
Human Rights Watch also finds that Iran abused survivors of June attack, which killed 80 people
Israeli airstrikes on Tehran’s Evin prison in June killed scores of detainees, visitors and staff in what Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called an “apparent war crime”. Iranian authorities have since subjected survivors to abuse, enforced disappearances and inhumane detention conditions, the rights group said.
HRW’s investigation, based on satellite imagery, videos and witness accounts, found the 23 June Israeli airstrikes destroyed visitation halls, prison wards, the central kitchen, the medical clinic and administrative offices. No evident military targets were identified in the facility, which held more than 1,500 prisoners at the time, many of whom had been jailed for peaceful activism.
“Israel’s strikes on Evin prison on June 23 killed and injured scores of civilians without any evident military target in violation of the laws of war and is an apparent war crime,” said Michael Page, deputy Middle East director at HRW. “The Israeli attack placed at grave risk the already precarious lives of Evin’s prisoners, many of them wrongfully detained dissidents and activists.”
At least 80 people died in the attack, which occurred during visiting hours, when public areas were at their busiest. HRW described the strike as unlawfully indiscriminate. Israeli officials have called Evin a “symbol of oppression” but have provided no evidence of military use.
The prison attack took place during a 12-day conflict between Israel and Iran in which hundreds of civilians were killed on the Iranian side. The US-based rights group Human Rights Activists in Iran (HRAI) said the Israeli strikes on Iran resulted in at least 5,665 casualties, including 1,190 killed and 4,475 injured, both military and civilian. The Iranian security forces also arrested 1,596 individuals during the 12-day war, the group added. Twenty-eight people died on the Israeli side, all but one of them civilians.
In the aftermath, HRW said, Iranian authorities moved prisoners to two main detention centres in Tehran province – Shahr-e Rey prison, or Qarchak, for women, and the Greater Tehran Central Penitentiary, or Fashafouyeh, for men – shackling male inmates in pairs, beating some with batons and using electric shocks (on return to Evin) for protesting their handcuffing and the transfer of death row prisoners. Women were locked in their ward without water or phone access before being moved on 24 June to Qarchak, notorious for overcrowding and inhumane conditions.
“Iranian authorities have committed a catalogue of violations against prisoners in the aftermath of the attack, including beatings, insults, and threats during transfers, and holding prisoners in appalling conditions that have endangered their lives and health. Death-row inmates and those forcibly disappeared are now at heightened risk of torture or execution,” added Page.
Some detainees were returned to Evin 46 days later only to face similar violence during transfers. Authorities have withheld information on the fate and whereabouts of some detainees held by security and intelligence agencies, including dissidents, human rights activists, and dual or foreign nationals.
HRW has called for independent investigations into violations by both Israel and Iran, with those responsible held accountable for possible war crimes.
“The Israeli attack on Evin Prison — carried out in broad daylight, in front of families and visitors — is clearly a war crime,” says Nobel
S. Baum at Erin In The Morning:
Over 100 transgender and gender nonconforming people incarcerated in Iran are missing and/or presumed dead—killed by an Israeli air strike, a human rights lawyer in the region told The New York Times. The targeted strike destroyed parts of Evin, a Tehran prison known for vicious human rights abuses and detention of political prisoners, in late June. The facility’s “trans ward” was reportedly flattened in the attack.
Israeli officials framed the mass slaughter of civilians—including human rights activists, medical staff, and nearby residents—as “somehow an act of liberation,” The Times reports.
It’s a telling example of Israel's fraught relationship with LGBTQ rights, one that is often deployed in order to justify massacres in the region.
“History shows that authoritarian regimes often use wars and external crises as a pretext to intensify repression at home,” a widely-shared statement reads, which was signed by almost two dozen high-profile Evin prisoners and ex-prisoners, including Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi. “The Israeli attack on Evin Prison—carried out in broad daylight, in front of families and visitors—is clearly a war crime.”
This stands in stark contrast with the image that Israel seeks to project to the world when it comes to LGBT rights: That the country is an “LGBTQ haven.” That the Israeli government is committed to “spreading the values of freedom, tolerance and democracy to the world.” That its military aggression is in service to, at least in part, the preservation of LGBTQ “love.”
At least 100 trans and gender nonconforming people imprisoned in the Evin Prison in Iran were either missing or dead by an Israeli air strike.
See Also:
LGBTQ Nation: 100 trans inmates presumed dead after Israeli attack on notorious Iranian prison
The Advocate: 100 transgender inmates presumed dead after Israeli missiles struck Iranian prison last month
The IDF bombed the entrance to a prison in Iran, which holds many political prisoners who were incarcerated for their opinions and actions which go against the Islamic Regime.
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