Iran Focus: Tehran, Iran, Jun. 04 – A female prisoner has committed suicide to escape “unbearable torture” by prison guards, according to reports from Ward 7 of Gohardasht Prison.
Iran Focus
Tehran, Iran, Jun. 04 – A female prisoner has committed suicide to escape “unbearable torture” by prison guards, according to reports from Ward 7 of Gohardasht Prison.
Mahnaz Akbar Tehrani, 22, was initially taken to the Protection and Security Department in prison and was subjected to “brutal torture”, human rights activists say. “She was tortured severely to a point that she had to be helped to walk to her cell and was left with a bloody face”.
Female prisoners who are transferred to solitary cells get one ration of food per day and are kept hungry, the activists who requested anonymity said. They are only allowed to use the bathroom twice in 24 hours, are banned from taking a shower, and live in an abysmal hygienic conditions.
There have been reports that prison guards in the Protection and Security Department and solitary department rape female prisoners as a means of torturing them. Female prisoners are forced to stay in solitary cells for more than three months. Tehrani was believed to be one of the women who have been subjected to such actions.
She committed suicide at 7 am several days ago in her cell, and guards found her dead body at 12 noon.
Female prisoners are taken to the Protection and Security Department by Ali Mohammadi, the prison assistant warder; Turabi the head of examinations; Kermani, head of Protection and Security, Faraj Zadeh, assistant head of Protection and Security; and Khadem, the head of ward one. These prison officials sexually and physically torture the prisoners, activists say. “The prison officials brutally beat prisoners with electric clubs in front of other prisoners until they pass out”.
Another method used against female prisoners is to turn them into drug addicts, according to the activists. Prison officials give prisoners methadone or other addictive drugs. “They prescribe dangerous addictive drugs as tranquiliser to prisoners and insist that prisoners use them”. An individual called Mahalati is responsible for coordinating this action.
