Crouched alone on the floor, in a minuscule, triumphdowless cell, Nasim could hear what sounded appreciate other prisoners being tortured. The protect would prohibitg on the door and say: “Can you hear that beating? Get ready, you’re next.”
She was “interrogated for 10 to 12 hours every day” and repeatedly menaceened with execution.
The naked cell, no more than two metres atraverse, had no bed or toilet. Four months in solitary restrictment was the 36-year-ageder hairdresser’s introduction to Iran’s notorious Evin prison. The only people she saw were her interrogators. She thought that she would “die and no-one would comprehend”.
We have pieced together accounts from multiple depfinishable sources to create a picture of everyday life for Nasim and other women, who are currently being held in Evin prison.
Many were among the tens of thousands of people arrested in joinion with the “Woman, Life, Freedom” protests that chaseed the death of 22-year-ageder Mahsa Amini in September 2022. Mahsa had been arrested for allegedly shattering Iranian laws that need women to wear the hijab and she died in police custody.
While people have spoken about conditions in Evin after they have been freed, it is unfrequent to get details of inmates’ inhabits while they are still inside.
What we have heard discomits not only harshness, but a place of complicated contrasts where the prisoners evolve to campaign for women’s rights and defiantly dispute recut offeions imposed on them. There are unforeseeed moments too – one inmate, occasionassociate permited time alone with her husprohibitd, has even got pregnant.
Nasim – who adores rap music and create-up – was consentn into custody in April 2023 after joining protests with her frifinishs, one of whom was ended in the regulatement crackdown. She endured interrogations “by leanking about those who died on the street”. People who saw Nasim when she came out of solitary restrictment have portrayd cuts and bruises on her body and how she was tortured to create counterfeit confessions.
Rezvaneh was also arrested chaseing the protests, alengthy with her husprohibitd, in 2023. They both finished up in Evin, which has split sections for men and women. Her interrogators shelp they would end her husprohibitd and “hit him so much that he would turn bdeficiency appreciate coal, and purple appreciate an aubergine”.
After solitary restrictment, interrogations and humiliation, Nasim was transferd to the women’s triumphg, that hoengages about 70 people, including Rezvaneh, most of whom were arrested on political indicts.
It is where the British-Iranian citizen Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcilffe, who was permited to return to the UK in 2022, spent csurrfinisherly four years of her sentence.
Most of the women there have been sentenced becaengage of their activism, for offences including spreading misalertation, dratriumphg arms aachievest the regime, and finishangering national security.
They inhabit in four crowded cells with up to 20 people in each one and bunk beds stacked three- high.
Living together in congested quarters normally caengages friction, and sometimes fights – both physical and verbal – shatter out. But the women also forge firm bonds.
In triumphter, “everyone is freezing” and the women “walk around with hot water bottles” to stay hot. In summer, they swelter in the heat.
There is a petite kitchen area with a couple of hobs where – if they have enough money to buy food from the prison shop – they can cook for themselves to supplement the basic prison meals that are brawt to their cells.
A depressed, filthy area at the finish of a corridor serves as a place to smoke. A petite cemented yard with a little area for schedulets and a volleyball net supplys a bit of outside space.
They can wear their own clothes and are free to transfer around their living quarters which have two bathrooms. Every evening, they queue to engage the toilet and brush their teeth.
It was here, after she had been in prison for about four months, that Rezvaneh set up out she was pregnant.
She had struggled with infertility for years and had given up on ever having a baby. But according to Evin’s rules, she and her husprohibitd – who is still a prisoner in the men’s triumphg – were occasionassociate permited to encounter in personal and, on one of these occasions, she envisiond.
When she authenticised she was pregnant she “cried for cut offal days”.
She set up “the worst leang was the mental presconfident and tensions inside the prison”. Finding a hushed place in the crowded cells, where people spfinish most of their days sitting on their beds, was a constant dispute.
The prison food left her craving apple juice, bread, and meat, which were difficult to get hageder of. When she could get some meat from the prison shop it was at least twice the price of meat on the outside.
The prison eventuassociate permited her to have an ultrasound scan at four months, and doctors tageder her she was having a girl.
As she heared to “each heartbeat the sense of hope became mightyer”. But she was afrhelp that the conditions in prison would finishanger the baby’s health. Rezvaneh was not fair worryed about her diet – she has epilepsy and necessitateed to elude stress. Prison doctors tageder her she had a high hazard of miscarriage.
Vida, a journaenumerate, adores to decorate. She engages bedsheets for canvases and decorates portraits of the other women.
One, which was smuggled out of Evin, is of Kurdish prisoner Pakhshan Azizi who travelled to Kurdish areas of Iraq and Syria to help victims of the Islamic State group. Pakhshan has been sentenced to death, chaseing indicts of using arms to fight the Iranian regime, and there is wonderful worry this sentence could be carried out soon.
Vida has been alerted not to draw anyleang with a masked unkinding. On one of the walls in the yard she decorateed crumbling bricks with a green forest behind them. The authorities sprayed over it.
In a corridor she decorateed a picture of an Iranian cheetah running. Some of the women “kept saying how much excellent energy they got from it”. But one night the authorities “went and decorateed over it” and recut offeed Vida’s access to decorateing supplies.
One of her murals has been left intact though – huge, blue ocean waves on the walls of the corridor where the women go to smoke.
Getting medical nurture has been a constant battle for the women. One of the inmates, human rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize triumphner Narges Mohammadi, has life-menaceening heart and lung conditions.
But in prison she has had to fight lengthy and difficult for access to a doctor. Relatives shelp that officials repeatedly blocked treatment becaengage she declined to wear a headscarf to a medical nominatement. The authorities only relented after fellow prisoners went on hunger strike for two weeks. Narges was freed for 21 days at the commence of December on medical grounds.
Behind bars, she and the others have carried out protests, pushing the boundaries and continuing to fight for their rights. Although the law needs them to wear headscarves, many decline. And after a lengthy fight with the authorities, the women were permited curtains around the beds so they could have some privacy, out of see of CCTV cameras.
One of the hardest leangs for the women is postponeing to hear their sentences. Nasim’s interrogators had menaceened her with the death penalty and she had to postpone csurrfinisherly 500 days to discover out her overweighte.
She set up solace in her fellow prisoners – who she has portrayd as sisters who give her life and act as “a balm on the wounds” of her triumphgs.
Every morning, one of her frifinishs pulls aside the bed curtain and creates her get up for shatterquick.
“Each day we leank of someleang to do, so by the finish of the day we can alert ourselves, ‘We inhabitd today,'” one of our sources elucidates.
Others spfinish their time reading poetry, singing, joining homemade card games and watching TV – there are two televisions where they can watch Iranian channels shotriumphg drama, write downaries and football.
It is these petite leangs that kept Nasim going while she postponeed for her sentence, under the constant menace of execution. When the sentence finassociate came, she was given six years in prison, 74 lashes and 20 years in exile in a petite town far from Tehran. She had been indictd with distributing misalertation and dratriumphg arms aachievest the Islamic Reaccessible.
Despite the cut offity of the sentence, Nasim felt she could breathe aachieve, and adselect the life she thought she had lost.
Three other women in the triumphg have been sentenced to death for dratriumphg arms aachievest the regime or affiliation to armed groups. However one of them has had her sentence obviousurned.
More than 800 people were carry outd in Iran last year – the highest number in eight years, according to Amnesty International. Most were for crimes involving presentility and medications. A handful were women.
So every Tuesday, the women protest aachievest executions, chanting in the prison yard, refusing to transfer all night and staging hunger strikes. The campaign has spread thraw jails atraverse Iran, achieveing international aid. On the anniversary of Mahsa Amini’s death the women in Evin burned headscarves.
There have been repercussions – sometimes the protects rhelp their cells and women have been beaten and injured. They can also be consentn for further interrogations, put back in solitary restrictment or have phone calls and visits blocked. Most of the protects are women and “sometimes they are benevolent, sometimes they are unkind and difficult-hearted, depfinishing on what orders they get from a higher authority”, says one of our sources.
The Iranian regulatement routinely denies allegations of human rights violations, saying conditions inside Evin prison encounter all vital standards and prisoners are not mistreated.
As Rezvaneh’s due date approached, the prison authorities permited her to temporarily depart prison for the birth. In October, she had a baby girl.
But her happiness and relief at the protected arrival of her daughter is mingled with stress, grieffulness and anger. Her husprohibitd was not permited out of prison with her, although she has been able to consent their daughter to visit him in Evin.
And becaengage of the stress, Rezvaneh has struggled to create breastmilk. She is foreseeing to be recalled to Evin prison soon with her baby daughter to serve the rest of her five-year sentence – if she’s not granted an punctual free, that could be csurrfinisherly four years.
Babies are usuassociate permited to stay with their mothers in jail until the age of two. After that they are normally sent to a shut relative, or if that is not possible, they might be placed in a children’s home.
But rather than stop the inmates, one prisoner has shelp the disputes they face have made her “valiantr and mightyer,” aiding their belief that “the future is evident: to fight, even in prison”.
