Iran: here’s what it’s like to be a political prisoner in Iran

Here’s what it’s like to be a political prisoner in Iran

Toby Meyjes for Metro

For Farzad  Madadzadeh What followed was an arrest, months of interrogation, what he described as brutal beatings and solitary confinement, followed by a trial that lasted a matter of minutes and then five years in prison.

Arrested in 2009 and then released from prison in 2014, he was one of tens of thousands of prisoners incarcerated at that time

Amnesty International estimates that between 2013 and 2015 around 2,000 people have been executed in Iran.

And a recent escalation – including the hanging of 20 Sunni inmates at Gohardasht Prison earlier this month – has left many fearing we could see a return of something akin to one of the bloodiest periods in Iran’s recent history.

In 1988 the regime executed as many as 30,000 political prisoners. Something which The British Parliamentary Committee for Iran Freedom recently said should be considered a crime against humanity.

In 2009, Farzad became a political prisoner himself. His active support of the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (PMOI), an opposition group within Iran, had captured the attention of the authorities.

‘When I went inside the station I saw that the atmosphere was not normal,’ he said.

‘There were several plain clothes policemen there. I didn’t realise at the time but they were agents of the ministry of intelligence.’

And a recent escalation – including the hanging of 20 Sunni inmates at Gohardasht Prison earlier this month – has left many fearing we could see a return of something akin to one of the bloodiest periods in Iran’s recent history.

In 1988 the regime executed as many as 30,000 political prisoners. Something which The British Parliamentary Committee for Iran Freedom recently said should be considered a crime against humanity.

In 2009, Farzad became a political prisoner himself. His active support of the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (PMOI), an opposition group within Iran, had captured the attention of the authorities.

‘When I went inside the station I saw that the atmosphere was not normal,’ he said.

‘There were several plain clothes policemen there. I didn’t realise at the time but they were agents of the ministry of intelligence.’

The facts: 

- More then 30,000 political prisonners were massacred in Iran in the summer of 1988

- The massacre was carried out on the basis of a fatwa by Khomeini.

- The vast majority of the victims were activists of the opposition PMOI (MEK).

- A Death Committee approved all the death sentences.

- Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi, a member of the Death Committee, is today Hassan Rouhani’s Justice Minister

- The perpetrators of the 1988 massacre have never been brought to justice.