The Evin Prison: A Prison of Eaves and a Prisoner Swap in the Era of Repression and Demonstration

The two years I spent in Evin were the most harrowing of my life. I was arrested at Tehran airport after three weeks of travel and was sentenced to five years in prison for espionage. I ultimately served two years and three months of a 10-year sentence before being freed in a prisoner swap deal negotiated by the Australian government.

We felt shock and amazement, but also fear and concern for those trapped inside the Evin prison. I had visions of my former cellmates, dear friends who had become like sisters, cowering in smoke-filled hallways fighting the effects of tear gas.

I had no choice but to contemplate their fear, being locked up in a crowded jail with no chance of escaping as flames, bullets and riot police descended from all sides.

A close contact of one of them said that there were disagreements between prison management and the Revolutionary Guards who had been using live fire and teargas to quash the riots in wards 7 and 8.

The facility has been used to hold political prisoners for decades, most recently activists arrested during nationwide protests after the death of a woman in police custody.

The former foreign hostages and other people who have been in the Iranian prison system frantically exchanged information and talked to each other after the fire broke out.

The Iranian human rights lawyer Amirsalar Davoudi got word out that he and his cellmates in Ward 4 had survived — likewise the recently arrested activist Arash Sadeghi. There was a collective sigh of relief among those of us connected to the prison with every welfare check received.

The prison where I spent most of my time is located in the foothills of the Alborz Mountains. Ringed by high concrete walls topped with razor wire, the prison is guarded by a contingent of armed soldiers whose noisy patrols could often be heard from within the cells.

Entering from the prison’s front gates requires a prisoner blindfolded, handcuffed and crammed into the back of a vehicle, along with prison transfer guards. A prisoner could count how many checkpoints had been passed by how many times the vehicle’s trunk was opened and inspected.

Inside is a maze of administrative buildings and judiciary offices, with roughly a dozen prison wards perched on top of each other and built into the sharp slope of the mountain.

These “black sites” are excluded from the oversight of Iran’s Prison Authority, an institution that is supposed to safeguard prisoner rights. The groups that fought over the granting of prisoner vacations, medical treatment for inmates, and other things were often from the same group.

It was days before I would glean more news of my friends. As chaos reigned supreme and security forces unleashed deadly force on those inmates attempting to escape from their burning wards, the female political prisoners came perilously close to attack.

I was aware that a lawyer in prison with me was said to have been rearrested, along with other activists.

Just as many of the protests on the streets were being led by women, some of the Islamic Republic’s most effective opponents are locked away right now in the women’s ward at Evin. Some of these inspiring women could become the future leaders of a free and democratic Iran if given the chance.

An Iranian Prisoner Released from the Evin Prison for a Protest against the Closing of the Obstruction of the Adjunction Law

As the situation improved, people thronged on the streets outside Evin to find out about their loved ones inside.

I can’t imagine what it must have felt like to hear gunfire just meters outside the locked doors of their unit. I am not surprised that this man is a member of the cruel and repressive system that detains innocent prisoners. I am glad he realized his conscience that day. The lives of my friends may have depended on it.

Iranian prisoners, many of whom are innocent of any crime, would want to show their support for their countrymen protesting on the streets.

It is likely that the regime will soon lose its grip on the country if it is not able to control its most sensitive maximum security prison. Many of us are now hoping for a day in which there will be no need for an Evin prison at all.

An Iranian doctor and rights activist has been released from Tehran’s infamous Evin prison one week after photographs of his severely emaciated condition emerged on social media.

The French Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that Fariba Adelkhah had been also released from Evin.

Meysami was jailed for his support of women who were protesting the compulsory hijab law. He was charged with “assembly and collusion to act against national security” and of “propaganda against the regime.” The group focuses on Iran, Human Rights Activists (HRANA).

After the images of Meysami circulated online, state affiliated media last Friday denied the activist was on hunger strike, and said that he was in “good condition.”

The text of a letter that was provided to CNN by an attorney shows that Meysami went on a hunger strike to protest against the executions of prisoners, to call for the release of protesters and to demand the end of the compulsory hijab. CNN was not able to verify the authenticity of the letter.

An Israeli hostage release request for the release of a French citizen after a decade of anti-government protests in the Islamic Republic of Iran

The amnesty included some people who had been arrested in recent anti-government protests that have swept the country since last fall, according to HRANA.

Nationwide dissent erupted late last year, as decades of bitterness over the regime’s treatment of women and other issues boiled over after the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini while in the custody of the country’s morality police.

The months-long movement posed one of the biggest domestic threats to the ruling clerical regime in more than a decade, after authorities violently repressed it.

The director of French university, Sciences Po, Mathias Vicherat also responded in a tweet: “What joy, what relief to learn of the confirmation of the release of our friend, our colleague, Fariba Adelkhah.”

France reiterated its demand for the immediate release of all French people who have been arbitrarily imprisoned in Iran, and the foreign minister demanded the release of 7 French hostages.

A ministry spokesman said it is “extremely concerned” about the health of French national Benjamin Brière and French-Irish national Bernard Phelan in particular.

“It is evident that this politics of state hostages carried out by the Islamic Republic of Iran is reprehensible and cannot but contribute to a profound degradation in our bilateral relations like the relations of Iran with Europe,” the spokesperson said Thursday.