by Jerusalem Post Staff
Evin’s reputation for cruelty extends beyond Iranian dissidents to foreign nationals caught in Tehran’s political crosshairs.
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The IDF on Monday launched a precision strike on the reinforced main gate of Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison as part of Operation Rising Lion, targeting one of the Islamic Republic’s principal instruments of political repression.
The precision strike on Evin Prison symbolically condemned Iran’s decades-long system of torture – from beatings and electric shocks to sensory deprivation and sexual humiliation, alongside arbitrary detention and medical neglect – while expressing solidarity with political prisoners and warning the regime of the costs of its repression.
Official statements described the raid as a symbolic blow aimed not at harming prisoners but at undermining the regime’s capacity to detain, torture, and silence dissidents. Iranian state television confirmed damage to the prison’s entrance and nearby administrative buildings, while footage circulated online showing the gate’s rubble smoldering under the dawn sky.
Constructed in 1972 under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Evin Prison occupies a five-hectare (12-acre) complex in northern Tehran that, after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, was repurposed by the Intelligence Ministry as the regime’s chief detention center for political prisoners. Today, it detains an estimated 10,000–15,000 inmates, including protesters, journalists, academics, dual nationals, and foreign visitors accused of espionage or “enmity against God.”
Western governments and human rights organizations have long viewed Evin as the epicenter of Iran’s system of arbitrary arrest and secretive trials.
Systematic torture and “white torture”
Amnesty International’s 2020 report, “Trampling Humanity,” documented mass arrests following Iran’s November 2019 protests and concluded that detainees at Evin were routinely subjected to beatings, electric shock, and sexual humiliation, with no meaningful oversight of interrogators.Human Rights Watch has likewise chronicled the widespread use of sensory deprivation, so-called “white torture,” in Ward 209, where blindfolded prisoners endure prolonged solitary confinement designed to shatter both body and mind. These tactics, deployed en masse, serve both to extract coerced confessions and to terrorize potential critics of the regime.
Evin’s reputation for cruelty extends beyond Iranian dissidents to foreign nationals caught in Tehran’s political crosshairs. Canadian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi died in custody in 2003; her autopsy revealed skull fractures, severe bruising, and evidence of sexual assault, triggering international outrage and a diplomatic crisis.
In subsequent years, journalists, such as Jason Rezaian of The Washington Post, and dual nationals, like the “Baha’i 7,” endured years of sham trials and solitary confinement, used as bargaining chips in hostage diplomacy.
Gender-based violence and medical neglect
Women held in Evin face uniquely horrific abuses. In December 2022, Nobel laureate Narges Mohammadi penned a letter from her cell detailing systemic sexual assault and harassment by prison guards and interrogators.More recently, the Iran Human Rights Monitor documented the deliberate denial of medical care to female political prisoners. Mahvash Seydal was refused treatment for chronic ailments, and cancer patient Marzieh Farsi was repeatedly denied chemotherapy, placing her life at risk.
Charges leveled in Evin include “corruption on earth” and “enmity against God,” with sentences including death by hanging. In April 2025, at least five political prisoners received death sentences and were barred from any contact with family, a practice condemned as psychological torture designed to instill despair.
Jerusalem Post Staff
Source: https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/iran-news/article-858692
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