Ghazal Marzbaan’s Account of Sexual Assault in Ministry of Intelligence Detention Facility and a Question That Nine-Year Prison Sentence Cannot Silence

Ghazal Marzbaan, a Catholic Christian citizen imprisoned in Evin Prison, has written a letter describing her experience of sexual assault in one of the Ministry of Intelligence’s detention facilities, threats to keep silent, and obstruction of her filing a complaint. Her harrowing account, coupled with her sentence of nine years and eight months imprisonment, raises serious questions about torture, immunity for security officials, and the absence of independent mechanisms for justice in Iran.

Ghazal Marzbaan, a Catholic Christian imprisoned in Evin Prison, wrote a letter in Mordad 1405 from inside the prison describing a harrowing account of what she says happened to her in one of the Ministry of Intelligence’s detention facilities. She states that following her arrest in Ordibehesht 1402, at a location she later learned was one of the Ministry of Intelligence’s operational detention centers, she was sexually assaulted and subsequently threatened into silence about the incident.

According to Marzbaan’s account, on 27 Ordibehesht 1402, while walking in a park, she was arrested by several officials. After blindfolding her, the officials transported her by vehicle to an unknown location, which she later learned was the Ministry of Intelligence detention facility.

In her letter, she writes that upon entering the detention facility, she was subjected to a body search and the officials demanded she remove all her clothes. She was then taken to a cell in the basement. Shortly after, according to Marzbaan, a masked man entered the cell and assaulted her.

In describing the consequences of this incident, Marzbaan wrote that the assault resulted in bleeding and physical and psychological injuries. She also recounted that after this incident, several detention facility officials promised her release in exchange for her silence, and when she was transferred, they threatened her about the consequences of revealing what happened.

This part of her account represents one of the most serious allegations made regarding the conduct of Islamic Republic security officials toward a detainee. If proven, it would not merely constitute a violation of a prisoner’s rights, but could be a serious instance of sexual violence during detention and abuse of power.

According to Marzbaan’s account, when she was arrested again in Dey 1404, one of her greatest fears was being returned to the same location.

She wrote: “The greatest torture during my 22 days of detention at the Ministry of Intelligence detention facility was the fear of that unpleasant incident recurring.” Marzbaan also stated that during this detention, she protested the movement of men through the women’s section and was met with harsh treatment from officials. According to her, after 10 days of hunger strike, in a condition where she was “dying,” she was transferred to prison.

This account becomes even more significant when one considers that Ghazal Marzbaan had previously been arrested and imprisoned, and in her second arrest, she again encountered the very structure she herself describes as the primary source of her fear and insecurity. A complaint that, according to Ghazal, she was not permitted to file. A crucial section of Marzbaan’s letter concerns her claim about attempting to file a complaint about the assault.

She writes that in the previous detention, she tried several times to file a complaint about the assault, but each time was met with refusal and threats. According to her, these pressures caused her to conceal the matter.

Marzbaan also referenced the condition of her husband in explaining her silence—a husband whom she says suffers from advanced Parkinson’s disease and would find it difficult to bear the psychological pressure of learning of this incident. She wrote: “I remained silent. I isolated myself and distanced myself from people.”

This section of her account raises a fundamental question: If a detainee cannot file a complaint against officials whom she claims committed assault in a detention facility, how can mechanisms of justice function in such cases?

Ghazal Marzbaan is currently facing serious legal charges. After her arrest in Tehran, she was transferred to Evin Prison, and Branch 26 of the Tehran Revolutionary Court, presided over by “Iman Afshari,” sentenced her to nine years and eight months imprisonment. The charges against her include “propaganda against the system” and “gathering and conspiracy against national security.”

International bodies have previously expressed concern about her situation. The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has included Ghazal Marzbaan on its list of prisoners of conscience and described her arrest and conviction as related to her religious activity and beliefs.

Article 18 has also reported that during her detention, her Bible and other Christian literature were seized, and she was interrogated and asked to admit that these materials were used for proselytizing activities—an accusation Marzbaan rejected, stating the books were for personal use.

International media shows that Ghazal Marzbaan’s case had attracted the attention of religious freedom and human rights organizations even before the publication of this letter. Article 18, USCIRF, and various international Christian organizations have documented her arrest, deprivation of liberty, pressure due to Christian beliefs, and harsh sentence.

However, the allegation of sexual assault presented in Marzbaan’s letter has not yet been independently verified by international sources. Therefore, what is currently available is Ghazal Marzbaan’s direct account. In this recently published letter, Ghazal writes:

“It was the 27th of Ordibehesht 1402; a relatively cool afternoon and gentle breeze for a walk in the park. A habit I had maintained for several years to preserve my health.

During this walk, I was reviewing in my mind the events of the past year and all the incidents that had befallen all of us Iranian people since the 25th of Shahrivar 1401; from the accounts of people’s suffering to the blood spilled in the streets, to the lives unjustly taken in the path of freedom, to our swallowed sobs and the streets that still witnessed our Iranian people’s solidarity.

I was walking around the park. Gradually, I quickened my pace. As if with each step, I was separating myself from the world around me. On the walls around the park, I could still see the slogans “Woman, Life, Freedom.” I could even see handwritten notes that carried the scent of young girls’ hands—primary school girls who had written the slogan with colored pencils.

I was lost in my thoughts when suddenly two men and a woman stood before me. I tried to change direction, but it seemed they really did have business with me. To be honest, I was somewhat frightened. It had been years since people with such an appearance stood before me that I understood something serious was about to happen.

The woman was wearing a chador and a mask. After the COVID pandemic, wearing a mask had become normal for us; but this time the mask seemed to smell of fear. I don’t know, perhaps they fear their victims more than we fear them.

I was staring at them when I came to myself upon hearing my name called several times: “Mrs. Marzbaan, you must come with us; you are arrested.” I asked the reason, and the answer was only anger and threats. I wanted to resist, but two other men joined them and threatened that if I didn’t go with them, they would forcibly take me with them.

Two white Samand cars were parked there. Myself, a woman, and a man, both wearing masks, got into one car while the rest sat in the other vehicle. After getting into the car, they blindfolded my eyes with my scarf.

For about an hour, perhaps longer, I don’t know—I lost track of time. But I was aware that I had been arrested around 2 PM. It took time to reach their destination; a place that later, during my subsequent detention, I learned was one of the Ministry of Intelligence’s operational detention facilities.

First, a young man registered my identification details in the system. Then I was taken to a room by a woman for a search. After these procedures, which didn’t take long, they blindfolded my eyes and took me to one of the rooms where two women were present. I was told to remove all my clothes.

I, who had never been arrested before and was unfamiliar with these procedures, experienced severe anxiety and kept crying and begging them to release me. The chador-wearing women with masks said I should not worry because this was normal procedure and I had to be inspected. They said if I complied, they would let me contact my husband and inform him that I had been arrested.

With this promise, I took off my coat, but fear and terror came over me again. While I was naked, they wrapped a chador around my head and forcibly took me into a cell and left me there.

I got up and looked around the cell. From a small window facing the darkness above the cell, I understood it was a basement. It had a shower and a stainless steel toilet separated from the rest of the cell space by a short wall. The air was damp and filled with soil, and breathing became heavier for me.

Less than ten minutes later, the cell door opened. This time a tall man, perhaps about 180 centimeters, with a harsh voice mixed with shouting and anger, entered. His eyes showed through a black cap that covered his entire face except for his eyes and mouth. His shirt was worn over his pants; like all the men who dress this way for repression.

His ring was a red agate with writing on it; in the darkness of his all-black clothes, it stood out. From the tone of his voice, one could tell he was a man in his thirties. He was so large and heavily built that when he entered, he filled the entire door frame. From the moment he entered, I understood this incident was by no means natural.

He shouted loudly, ordering me to change into two pieces of clothing he had thrown before me. I was terrified. With all my strength I screamed and protested; as if at that moment my life was being torn from me.

My condition was that of a human being trapped in absolute helplessness. I wanted to bang on the door and call for help. I didn’t know what was about to happen. My breathing became heavier; as if I was still walking in the park, faster and faster. As if everything was a dream. I couldn’t believe it.

This was me in his hands, not in the gentle hands of my husband; a husband who for years, even for caressing and kissing, maintained boundaries and respect. For a moment I came to myself again: No, this was reality. I was still in that room, with that man, captive. He had violated my bodily integrity; my womanhood, my human dignity. My resistance, my tears, my screams.

Time felt like years to me. I don’t know, perhaps half an hour; perhaps less or more—this brutal assault lasted. After that, I was left alone. I had collapsed on the floor. The floor covering of the room was reddened by a large stain of my blood.

I remembered all those immortal names whose precious blood had been spilled on the stone pavements of streets the previous year; those whose only wish was an ordinary life.

Less than five minutes later, the door opened again. Two women in masks and chadors, and another woman in white nursing clothes, came to me. They tended somewhat to my distressed condition and allowed me to put on my own clothes, even bringing me my coat.

Several other men from those officials entered the cell and in exchange for my promise of silence, promised my release by evening. I hugged my knees and sat in the corner of the cell waiting. Time had slipped away from me. The whole time I felt as if I was dreaming; but the pain of my body and soul, which was filled far more than my body’s pain, reminded me: “You are awake, awake.”

Those people returned, blindfolded my eyes again, and put me in the same car that had brought me. Throughout the journey I was continuously threatened and warned about the consequences of breaking my silence. They dropped me off somewhere near my home. It was still the 27th of Ordibehesht. The time was around seven o’clock.

My mobile phone had rung several times. My husband was worried because he had not heard from me for a long time. I called him and said I had taken a longer walking route and had forgotten to turn my phone off silent mode. I returned home. Nothing was normal for me anymore. I didn’t know what to do with the suffering that had been imposed on me.

I was concerned about my husband’s condition. He had suffered from advanced Parkinson’s disease for several years and was in very bad health. I didn’t know what would happen to him if he learned of such an incident. The suffering of this disease had like a picked flower destroyed his youth, and it was not right to add another suffering to it.

I remained silent. I isolated myself and distanced myself from people. I no longer went to the park. I made excuses that the weather wasn’t suitable for walking. Night and day I held my soul in my arms and sought healing for the incredible experience I had endured.

On the 24th of Dey 1404, around midnight, I was arrested for the second time. This time it was similar to before, except that many sisters were with me, and perhaps this accompaniment and the number of arrested people somewhat reduced my anxiety about the repetition of that incident.

This time too I was taken to the same place. The greatest torture during my 22 days of detention at the Ministry of Intelligence detention facility was the fear of that unpleasant incident recurring. I protested several times the movement of men in the women’s detention facility and was met with harsh treatment from the officials there.

Forced with dry and wet hunger strike, after ten days, while I was dying, they transferred me to prison. When I was arrested last year, I tried several times to file a complaint about that assault, but each time they refused and threatened to keep me silent. Now, seven months after my arrest and imprisonment, I still live through the bitter days and everyday deaths of prison anxious from seeing men.

But I hope that one day the seeds of our suffering will sprout and the tree of our justice will flourish. With this letter of my heart, I am seeking justice for the suffering imposed on my life by the Ministry of Intelligence, and perhaps it will be a way to spread and multiply courage, so that we may speak of such injustices committed in the dark dungeons of the Islamic Republic’s oppression.

I hope for the days of my country’s liberation from the scourge of authoritarian violence; that authoritarian violence of a religious kind that for years women, the largest segment of those fighting it on the front lines, have resisted. Women who for years through civil struggles and intellectual warfare in universities, think tanks, and justice-seeking circles, and through civil disobedience, have multiplied courage and achieved victories.

We have proven that our power surpasses the power of missiles and bombs for domination and supremacy. We are those who brought protest from homes to the streets. We return once more to the front of intellectual struggle until the day when freedom of thought, freedom of belief, freedom of choice in dress, and liberation from despotism are achieved for our dear homeland. And not through enemy invasion, but through the resistance of we women and men of Iran.

Long live freedom; eternal be the homeland, Iran.

Ghazal Marzbaan, Mordad 1405.”

Now the issue is that the gravity of this allegation should not erase the distinction between “a victim’s account” and “an independently verified fact.” At the same time, the absence of independent investigation should not be an excuse to disregard the account of a detainee; especially when she herself claims her efforts to file a complaint were met with threats and obstruction.

The fundamental question remains unanswered. Ghazal Marzbaan’s case has now moved beyond a judicial sentence or a dispute over security charges. Her letter raises allegations about the conduct of officials of a security institution, sexual violence in detention, threatening a detainee into silence, and obstruction of complaint filing.

If these allegations are true, the question is not only about the fate of a Christian citizen in prison; the question concerns the structure itself—whether it provides the possibility of independent and impartial investigation into the conduct of its own officials.

In such circumstances, responding to these allegations with silence, denial, or imposing harsh sentences on the detainee herself cannot substitute for independent investigation.

In concluding her letter, Ghazal Marzbaan expressed hope for justice and called for an end to violence and despotism. Her account is now before public view and has at least created one clear demand: “The allegation of sexual assault in the Ministry of Intelligence detention facility must be investigated independently, impartially, and verifiably.”