"Justice Ali" provided "confidential" correspondence from Evin Prison to Radio Farda

The cyber group "Justice Ali" has provided Radio Farda with new "confidential" documents from Evin Prison, which contain correspondence from prison officials regarding the situation of some political and ideological prisoners.

According to these documents, any protests, hunger strikes, and publication of letters by prisoners are considered "criminal" behavior.

In one of these letters, Gholamreza Mohammadi, the then head of information protection at Evin Prison, called for the punishment of prisoners for publishing letters, statements, and audio files on social media, and referred to the "successful benefit of canceling Nazanin Zaghari's in-person visit," which, he wrote, "ultimately led to her ending her strike."

He addressed the then warden of Evin Detention Center and demanded “the isolation of offending prisoners and the restriction of their welfare facilities, such as in-person and private visits.” The first line of one of the letters states that “the number of prisoners in Evin Detention Center on 30/4/99 was 2,695.”

The Justice Ali group says it prepared these documents with the aim of exposing them. Radio Farda cannot independently verify the authenticity of these documents.

On August 21, the group released videos to Radio Farda and some other media outlets that it said it had obtained by hacking into Evin Prison security cameras, images that contained the mistreatment of prisoners.

In another letter provided to Radio Farda, Ali Chaharmahali, the director of Evin Detention Center, referring to Maryam Akbari-Manfard's hunger strike, accused her of "insulting and insulting the officers" and wrote to the head of the Tehran Province Prisons Protection and Intelligence Department that "upon inquiry from the women's ward, the aforementioned prisoner, as before, has openly and stubbornly expressed hostility to the sacred system of the Islamic Republic of Iran and is not afraid of insulting the prison authorities in the event of any incident or event that contradicts her values ​​and ideology."

He has demanded that Ms. Akbari Monfared be transferred to the Shahr-e-Rey Penitentiary.

At least two of the documents obtained by Radio Farda relate to Mohammad Nourizad. One of the letters, addressed to the Department of Performance, Inspection, and Complaints Response of Tehran Province Prisons, states that Mohammad Nourizad "has continued to self-harm and hunger strike, according to the announcement of the head of the prison's sixth training center."

In another letter, Gholamreza Mohammadi, then head of information protection at Evin Detention Center, reported to the head of information protection and protection at Tehran Province Prisons that Mohammad Nourizad "had repeatedly attempted to publish lies and issue statements since his transfer to this detention center. For a while, his phone card was blocked by a judicial order, but after obtaining a commitment from him not to interview or publish statements, his card was reactivated by a judicial order. However, after a while, the person in question began to interview, publish lies, and issue statements."

Gholamreza Mohammadi has demanded an investigation into this matter and claimed that Mr. Nourizad "started an interview with the "Kalameh" television channel, while in direct contact with his wife, and in this interview, he insulted the sacred system of the Islamic Republic, the great founder of the revolution, the Supreme Leader, and also made false statements about the executed prisoner, Navid Afkari."

The content of another letter suggests that prison officials have prevented Nasrin Sotoudeh from meeting her family in prison, and have imposed conditions on her in this regard, such as giving a written commitment to "observe the hijab" in the manner desired by the officers, and have pressured her in this regard.

In one of these letters, the Dervishes are referred to as a "terrorist group" on par with ISIS and Restart, and officers are asked to be "vigilant" about possible actions by the Dervishes.

Disregard for prisoners' health

Another confidential letter received by Radio Farda describes the "inadequate" sanitary conditions at the Khorin Prison in Varamin, noting that despite the coronavirus situation, "60 prisoners are sleeping on the floor" with minimal distance from each other, that sick prisoners are not separated from other prisoners, and that sending sick prisoners to medical centers is "with difficulty."

Another letter states that one of the "aid seekers" in Evin Prison has gone on a hunger strike to protest the "sabotage of the IRGC and violation of human rights" by human rights activist Arash Sadeghi, who was prevented from being sent to the hospital.

Prisoners' hunger strikes due to judicial problems and then "checking their vital signs" by officers, prisoners' self-harm by repeatedly banging their heads on bathroom mirrors (and breaking five mirrors) to prevent officials from sending them to medical centers, and guards' disregard for the frequent visits of "unknown" people despite the coronavirus situation, are other points mentioned in a number of these letters.

Evin Prison is the most famous prison in Iran, where political prisoners are held in various wards. Some of its wards are also under the supervision of security agencies such as the Revolutionary Guards' intelligence, which has no control over them.

In April of this year, the European Union added Evin Prison, along with Greater Tehran Central Prison (Fashafoyeh Prison) and Rajai Shahr Prison, to its sanctions list on charges of human rights violations and the suppression of the November 2019 protests.

Source: Radio Farda