Iran Protest-No. 59
Six Political Prisoners Wounded in Ward 8 Identified
Regime’s contradictory, ridiculous narrative regarding the Evin prison incident
According to eyewitnesses, on the evening of Saturday, October 15, when the prisoners of Ward 7 and 8 in Evin prison were in the open air and began chanting “Death to Khamenei” in support of the uprising, the Special Guard forces stormed the prison and attacked defenseless prisoners using batons, firing tear gas, live ammunition, and bird shots.
Fifty prisoners were taken from Ward 8, where political prisoners are kept. Fifteen of them were taken to the prison hospital due to the severity of their injuries, and the rest were taken to Gohardasht prison and other unknown locations.
In Ward 7, the prisoners set fire to some of their blankets to counter the tear gas and suffocation caused by it. Simultaneously, the beating of the prisoners stepped up, and clashes between the prisoners of Ward 8 and the guards intensified.
Eyewitness: “We heard 3 explosions similar to RPGs or mortars. Special forces of the provincial guards raided #EvinPrison. The regime is trying to send Basij forces from different parts of Tehran to fight the people who gathered here.” #IranRevolution pic.twitter.com/QpNBGOQX0O
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) October 15, 2022
According to an eyewitness, the guards took 11 supporters of the PMOI/MEK out of Ward 8 while the other supporters remained under fire. Some of the prisoners who were hit by bullets and bird shots are Mehdi Vafa’i, Meysam Dehbanzadeh, Hossein Kayhan, Sepehr Imam Jum’e, Reza Qalandari, and Seyyed Javad Seyyedi.
As of Sunday noon, the pellets remained in the torsos and legs of some prisoners, and some of them had been hit by bullets in both legs. They were beaten with sticks, punched, and kicked even after being shot.
According to the other eyewitnesses, Ward 7 caught fire completely, and more than 60 prisoners were killed or wounded by gunshots. Bullet casings were found and seen at the site. According to another report from Ward 4, where ordinary and political prisoners, including PMOI/MEK supporters, are held, the prisoners broke the door and came out during the firing of tear gas and gunfire.
The clashes, chanting, and beating of the prisoners continued until 01:30 am local time. Plainclothes agents and IRGC forces surrounded the prison wards and indiscriminately shot at the windows to prevent the escape of the prisoners who had gone on the roof. At the same time, around Evin, the agents of the regime were targeting houses and windows and wherever the sound of slogans was heard, with live ammunition, pellets, and tear gas.
Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), called on the United Nations, the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Human Rights Council, and other human rights organizations to establish an international fact-finding mission to visit Evin as soon as possible with a representative from the Iranian Resistance to assess the crimes against humanity. If the regime claims that no crime has been committed, it should accept the visit by this mission. Mrs. Rajavi expressed her gratitude to the people of Tehran who rushed to the aid of the prisoners in Evin on Saturday night and said that if it were not for this action, this regime would not have spared anything to massacre prisoners, as happened in 1988.
I urge the United Nations, the UN Human Rights Council, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and the European Union to take urgent action and intervene to prevent the massacre of prisoners in #Evin. #Iran
— Maryam Rajavi (@Maryam_Rajavi) October 15, 2022
The authorities and the state-run media have been publishing contradictory narratives to cover up this mass crime. In a ridiculous report on Sunday, October 16, the IRGC-affiliated news agency, Fars, wrote, “Some prisoners attempted to escape. They entered the minefield on the northern side of the prison, which is mountainous. It is said that the sounds of the explosions heard were related to this issue”. The same news agency wrote an hour later, “An informed source told Fars, ‘In last night’s Evin prison incident, no prisoner walked on the minefield.’”
Tasnim, another state-run news agency affiliated with IRGC’s Quds Force, also wrote on October 16, “Four prisoners died due to inhaling smoke caused by the fires, and 61 prisoners were also injured. Most of the injured prisoners were treated on an outpatient basis, and only 10 of them are hospitalized, with four reported to be in serious condition.”
At the same time, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani’s son Yaser Hashemi’s statement about his brother Mehdi’s release from prison showed that the Evin fire was premeditated. Yasser Hashemi said in a Clubhouse message on October 16: “Mehdi has a day off every two weeks on Wednesdays and returns to prison on Fridays. (This week) they released Mehdi a day or two early, and when he wanted to return on Friday, they told him not to… (in a way) as he said, I thought, God forbid, maybe something had happened to my mother that some tell me to go… Mehdi was in Ward 7, and it seems to me that prison authorities knew that something was going to happen when he wanted to go back on Friday; they told him that there was no need for him to return. Again, it was strange to him why it was like that. Later, he found out that they were informed (that something was going to happen).”
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI)
October 16, 2022