Iran Focus
Tehran, 26 Apr – According to local reports, the head of internal affairs in Iran’s Gohardasht Prison in Karaj, Alborz Province (north-west of Tehran), also serves as an officially-sanctioned head of the prison’s narcotics gang.
Gohardasht is one of Iran’s largest and most high-security prisons. According to accounts by former inmates, political prisoners are transferred to Gohardasht Prison specifically to be tortured and persecuted due to their perceived threat to the regime.
The head of the prison’s internal affairs department is Dariyoush Amirian who is associated with the Intelligence Ministry (MOIS) and is believed to control the flow of narcotics in the prison. He brings drugs into the prison and distributes them via a gang, which charges several times the street price and ensures that inmates are absolutely dependent, reports say.
Each year, Iran executes large numbers of people on the charge of drug smuggling.
According to reports, Amirian’s gang is composed of several prisoners in various wards that carry out his orders. In addition to the distribution of drugs, they are used as a deadly tool to persecute political prisoners.
The MOIS transfers political prisoners from various prisons, including Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison, to Gohardasht to be tortured and persecuted by the narcotics gang in order to force them to cooperate with the government, sources say.
