Around 40 regime agents searched the ward and seized the notes and books of prisoners, and destroyed their personal belongings, on the orders of the head of the prison.
The henchmen then transferred several political prisoners to solitary confinement.
Four days earlier, the regime’s agents had also threatened and harassed Sami Hosseini, a political prisoner on death row.
On Thursday March 27, at Gohardasht Prison, a henchman named as Khazaie vilified prisoners using a loudspeaker. Subsequently, more than 300 inmates including political prisoners protested and refused to eat breakfast. The protest soon spread to other sections of Gohardasht Prison. Fearing a prisoners’ rebellion, the henchmen were forced to apologize.
Currently, political prisoner Ali Moezzi, who has relatives in Camp Liberty, Reverend Behnam Irani, and blogger Mohammd Reza Pourrshajary are also imprisoned in Gohardasht.
These measures are continuation of the regime’s increased repression of detainees during the Persian New Year.
On the evening of Friday March 21, guards beat and insulted prisoners in Section 5 of Zahedan Central prison, and transferred them to the prison yard. Henchmen threw the prisoners’ personal belongings into prison hallway and proceeded to destroy or steal their property.
When prisoners at protested this action, a henchman named as Rezai severely beat one of the prisoners. Torturers transferred him to solitary confinement in the Quarantine Section of the prison while his nose was bleeding.
In Tehran’s Evin prison, prisoners’ leave was cancelled, and the first weekly visits of the Iranian New Year were also axed, and prisoners were also denied telephone call to their families.
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
April 2, 2014