AMA Party: Ghazal Marzbaan’s Account of Sexual Assault—”Kolyma’s Tramway Moves Forward on Fuel of Silence”
The Free Christian Party of Iran (AMA) issued a statement referencing the account by Ghazal Marzbaan, a Christian citizen imprisoned in Evin Prison, regarding sexual assault at one of the Ministry of Intelligence detention facilities. The party characterized this as evidence of the use of sexual violence to intimidate and suppress prisoners, and called for the perpetrators and those who ordered such acts to be held accountable in international forums.
The Free Christian Party of Iran (AMA), in a letter referencing the account of Ghazal Marzbaan, a Christian citizen held in Evin Prison, regarding sexual assault and rape at one of the Ministry of Intelligence detention facilities, characterized this issue as evidence of what the party describes as “the pinnacle of moral degradation and the government’s torture-based apparatus.”
Ghazal Marzbaan, a Christian citizen, disclosed in a letter published from prison that after her arrest in Ordibehesht 1402 (April-May 2023), she was transferred to one of the operational detention facilities of the Ministry of Intelligence, where she was subjected to sexual assault. She also spoke of threats to remain silent about the incident and prevention of pursuing her complaint.
Marzbaan, currently imprisoned in Evin, was sentenced in Khordad of the current year by Branch 26 of Tehran’s Revolutionary Court to 9 years and 8 months imprisonment. The charges leveled against her include “propaganda against the system” and “assembly and conspiracy against national security.”
In its letter, the AMA Party, citing published accounts of sexual violence against prisoners and protesters in past decades, claimed that the use of sexual assault as a tool to terrorize and break down opponents has a long history in the Islamic Republic.
Part of the letter states:
“We entrust this letter to history’s memory with a heart full of pain, yet steadfast in the path of truth and justice. Once again, shocking and verified reports of sexual assault and rape against Ms. Ghazal Marzbaan, a courageous woman imprisoned in the dark dungeons of the Islamic Republic solely for her Christian faith, demonstrate the pinnacle of moral degradation and the torture-based government apparatus that calls itself religious, yet whose conduct reveals complete opposition to all human, moral, and divine standards.
The use of sexual assault as a weapon to intimidate and break the will of protesters and their families is not a new method in this regime. These vile crimes began from the very early years of the 1979 uprising and the establishment of the Islamic government against political and ideological opponents, relying on sacred religious laws in dawn executions!
Subsequently, during the 2009 protests and the regime’s heinous crimes in the Kahrizak torture prison, the extent of these violations became so blatant that even some regime officials were forced to confess. The regime’s repression machine was once again deployed with full brutality during Iran’s national revolution; the demonic government, in addition to shedding the blood of hundreds of thousands of children, youth, and elderly, did not refrain from blatant sexual assault on protesting girls, nor even from desecrating the lifeless bodies of some honored women of our land. This testifies to the fact that this system recognizes no red line in trampling human dignity.
This scale of savagery occurs while the regime’s own constitution contains hypocritical claims about freedom of expression, preservation of human dignity, and citizens’ rights; yet the bitter reality is that the ruling structure has no faith even in the minimum standards of its own man-made laws, and in this system, law is merely a mask for absolute suppression.
The free peoples of the world must be aware that “Kolyma’s tramway” continues to move forward on the fuel of silence regarding what Ghazal Marzbaan and other political and ideological prisoners endure.
The time has come for the world to, while severing political and diplomatic relations with this criminal regime, bring the perpetrators and those who ordered these crimes before international courts of justice.
Otherwise, this tramway recognizes no border within the realm of the “Gulag”!
The Free Christian Party of Iran (AMA)”
