Conviction of 40 Prisoners to 2 to 12 Years Additional Imprisonment, Lashes, and Payment of Blood Money in a Show Trial
Cover-Up of the Massacre of Evin Prison Inmates in October 2022 by Repressive Forces During the Nationwide Uprising
On June 18, 2024, in a show trial at Branch 1148 of the Criminal Court, the regime’s judiciary convicted 40 Evin Prison inmates on the ludicrous charge of participating in the fire at Evin Prison’s Wards 7 and 8 on October 15, 2022. They were sentenced to 2 to 12 years of additional imprisonment, lashes, and payment of blood money. The clear aim was to cover up the criminal assault by repressive forces on Evin Prison during the nationwide uprising, which resulted in numerous inmate deaths and injuries.
The families of these victims have since demanded the identification and punishment of those responsible for the murder of their loved ones.
In this show trial, according to a pre-determined script, the plan was to blame 40 inmates for the fire and the death of inmates. However, the victims’ families protested the completely false indictment during the trial. One family member said, “My child was killed with three bullets.” Several families stated, “Our children suffocated from tear gas and smoke. They didn’t even return our children’s bodies; they buried them themselves. We have no complaints against the inmates—they were our children’s friends.” Faced with this double disgrace, the regime adjourned the court session and the next day communicated the sentences to the inmates’ lawyers.
As a result of this in absentia trial, 40 inmates were collectively sentenced to 251 years and 8 months of additional imprisonment, 5,032 lashes, and payment of blood money to the victims’ families. Qasem Mohammadi was sentenced to 12 years. Alireza Valinia, Saeed Khodapour Afkariz, Masoud Parchami, Gholamhossein Hashemi Siavashani, Jalal Nasrollahi, Erfan Zarif ben Kazem, Majid Roshan Nejad, Mohammad Garavand, Sasan Zamani, Ahmad Reza Konani, Sobhan Moazen Zadeh, Ayoub Emami Zadeh, Sina Mirzaei, and the political prisoners who support the PMOI (People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran), Meysam Dehban Zadeh and Loqman Aminpour, were also sentenced to 8 years and 8 months each, along with lashes, on the fabricated charges of “destruction of public property,” “disturbing prison order,” and “disobedience to the orders of officers.”
The Iranian Resistance disclosed the details of this major crime in five statements issued between October 15 and 22, 2022. These statements revealed that on the evening of Saturday, October 15, the brutal Special Guard of the prison and the forces known as NOPO (Special Unit of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) attacked inmates in Wards 7 and 8 of Evin Prison because of their support for the uprising. They assaulted the inmates with tear gas, batons, and live and pellet bullets. The criminal elements of NOPO threw some inmates off the roof. The criminal agents targeted inmates in the yard from the roof with live and pellet bullets. They attacked Ward 8, where political prisoners are held, with live and pellet bullets, and fired tear gas into the ward, causing suffocation.
The Iranian Resistance calls on the UN High Commissioner and the Human Rights Council, along with other relevant United Nations bodies, the European Union, and its member states, to condemn this show trial and the issuance of additional long-term sentences for the inmates. It reiterates the necessity of an international fact-finding mission to visit Iranian prisons and meet with inmates, especially political prisoners.
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI)
20 June 2024
