generalspeaking

State Punishment for Dissenters, Government Critics

"What keeps me on my feet -- is my love for the honourable, but tormented, people of this country. I pledge to speak the truth, defy tyranny and defend the oppressed until my last breath."
Narges Mohammadi, Iranian human rights campaigner; incarcerated

"[I have been teaching other prisoners about] truth and reconciliation commissions. This fundamental aspect of survival."
"I specifically extend my hand to American citizens. Our governments have been rivals for years, with little regard for us."
Nasrin Sotondeh, Iranian human rights campaigner; incarcerated

Iran human rights activists Narges Mohammadi and Nasrin Sotoudeh who have been denied furlough from prison despite the risk of contracting coronavirus.

The two women now languishing in the notorious Evin prison have spent their lives fighting for the Islamic Republic of Iran's most vulnerable of its citizens. Eventually, themselves becoming politically-vulnerable, in the cross-hairs of the Iranian ayatollahs. Their human rights agitation, their protests, their support of dissidents and critics of the regime earned the ire of the despotic fundamentalist Shiite regime.

Aged 48 and 56, the two women are serving a combined 54 years in prison for the crimes of defending human rights, and as political prisoners charged for their affiliation with human rights and peace groups, along with launching an organization meant to gradually succeed in abolishing the death penalty in the country, where even juvenile offenders continue to be executed.

The UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Iran  released a report that documented how overcrowded and unhygienic conditions in the prison are, causing the spread of infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, HIV and hepatitis C. When March arrived, COVID-19 made the list. Which is when the women's ward holding Sotondeh and Mohammadi in Evin prison, ran out of medical and cleaning supplies.

Iran is being smothered with COVID cases, and a growing number of deaths related to COVID. A worst-case scenario of 3.5 million deaths in the country was predicted through a study by Iran's Sharif University; an utterly unthinkable death count. Public trust at an all-time low, it is doubtful that state instructions will be followed. The public has lost its trust in a system that orchestrated atrocities affecting Iranians.

Iran's death toll, according to an independent report by the country's own parliament, may be close to double the number officially declared, and cases ten times greater than declared. Which if true may see Iran becoming the hardest affected country in the world. And numbers are well understood to be even worse within Evin Prison.

In November security forces cracked down on mass protests in the street, killing 1,500 people in under two weeks. And two months later, the public was told lies as the leadership concealed its shooting down by members of the Republican Guard Corps of the Ukrainian airliner Flight 752,    when all 175 passengers perished.

The population now remains skeptical of their government's own figures on the extent of the pandemic, as they see journalists arrested and hospitals ordered not to list coronavirus as a cause of death. Moreover, Iranian authorities claim that the United States is responsible for the emergence of the disease in Iran. The government decided to release thousands of prisoners to curb the spread, particularly within the prison system.

Nasrun Sotonde

Judiciary Chief Ebrahim Raisi remarked furloughs would continue should prisoners not pose a threat to society. Remaining in prison are hundreds of people, identified as political prisoners whose status the authorities consider "national security" risks. The suspicion abroad is that by leaving political prisoners to languish in a prison considered to be a hot spot for the spread of the COVID threat, these prisoners are deliberately being left in the hope they will become infected; an extrajudicial punishment.

Judiciary  Chief Raisi is the same official responsible for serving on the death commissions in 1988 when five thousand political prisoners were sentenced to death by firing squad or hanging. He now oversees Iran's investigation into the bombing of Flight752. On being sworn in as Judiciary Chief a year ago, the man seen as a possible successor to the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, issued a 38 year and 148 lashes sentence for Nasrin Sotoudeh.

With her history of severe respiratory conditions, as well as a blood clot in her lungs, Narges Mohammadi is serving a 16-year sentence. She is currently suffering from "a severe cough, sore throat, and chest pain", according to her mother. She has been brutally beaten and transferred to a more dangerous facility as punishment for staging hunger strikes and sit-ins in solidarity with other prisoners and victims of the November crackdown.