On Tuesday, April 9, 2024, on the eve of Eid al-Fitr, the brutal guards of Sheiban Prison in Ahvaz, led by the prison director Mohammad Niazi and the head of prison counterintelligence Abdolhossein Gholamnejad, attacked Ward 5, which houses political prisoners. They destroyed or looted all of the prisoners’ belongings, including beds, refrigerators, and personal items. Gholamnejad had personally shot and killed prisoners in previous attacks at Sheiban Prison and has now established a ward called the “Tawwabin” (Repenters) Ward in the prison.
Prior to this criminal attack, political prisoners had protested the transfer of a large number of violent criminals to the political ward, but the criminal elements of the prison responded with a brutal attack. Political prisoners who are serving long sentences suffer from severe pain, such as kidney or tooth pain, or chronic diseases such as MS, but they are denied the possibility of treatment or medical leave.
Sheiban Prison, which has a capacity of 3,500, houses more than 5,000 prisoners with minimal facilities. The prison lacks basic medical facilities, and the quality of the food is very poor and unhygienic, which causes prisoners to suffer from gastrointestinal and viral diseases. The prison store sells goods at five times the price, and many prisoners cannot afford to buy food. They are forced to eat the contaminated and low-quality food provided by the prison, which results in most of them suffering from hunger and various diseases.
The henchmen use various methods to torture prisoners, such as beating them with plastic pipes, handcuffing them to the prison fences for long periods, sometimes up to two days, using electric shocks, and pouring hot water or oil on their heads.
Before being transferred to the general prison, political prisoners are tortured and interrogated in the security detention centers of Ahvaz. In one of these tortures, known as the “coffin,” the henchmen tie the prisoner’s hands and feet and put him in an iron box that is less than 50 centimeters high. The prisoner cannot move and feels so much pain that he faints.
The Iranian Resistance calls for the condemnation of this attack and the brutal treatment of prisoners in Sheiban by the UN Human Rights Council and High Commissioner and all international human rights defenders. It emphasizes the need for an international fact-finding mission to visit Iranian prisons and meet with prisoners, especially political prisoners, and the need for their release. This criminal and warmongering regime must be expelled from the international community, and its leaders, especially Ali Khamenei, Ebrahim Raisi, and Gholamhossein Eje’i, must be brought to justice for four decades of crimes against humanity and genocide.
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI)
10 April 2024
