Monitoring Desk
ISLAMABAD/LONDON: Sepideh Qolian, one of Iran’s most prominent female activists has described how confessions are forced out of prisoners, in a letter written inside a notorious jail.
She has served a five-year sentence since 2018 after being convicted of acting “against Iranian national security” for supporting a strike. Writing from Evin prison, she said that the brutal treatment of her and other detainees by an interrogator.
Their forced confessions have later broadcast on state-run television.
According to the BBC, alluding to a current anti-government protest sweeping the country, Qolian describes: “In a fourth year of my imprisonment, I can finally hear the footsteps of the liberation from all across Iran.
“The echoes of ‘Woman, Freedom, Life, can be heard even through the thick walls of Evin prison.”
The letter describes much more
Qolian has currently studied law in prison. In her letter, she has described how Evin’s “cultural” wing, where she takes her exams, has been turned into a “torture or interrogation” building and said she had witnessed young detainees being interrogated there.
She writes that the exam room is filled with young boys and girls and the shouts of torturers can be heard.
Qolian describes the scene she witnessed on 28 December 2022 when she was taken to a wing for her exam.
“It’s freezing cold or snowing, near the exit door of the building, the young boy blindfolded or wearing nothing but a thin grey T-shirt has sat in front of the interrogator.
“He’s shaking or pleading: ‘I swear to God I didn’t beat.’ They want him to confess. As I am passing I shout: ‘DO NOT confess,’ or ‘Death to you tyrants.'”
the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) said, at least 519 protesters, including 69 children have been killed and 19,300 arrested, and thousands have been imprisoned.
