Iran offers rare look inside feared prison

Iran offers rare look inside feared prison

13-06-2006

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- At a cellblock inside Iran's most feared prison, women weave carpets and watch World Cup soccer while their children scamper around at their feet. Inmates take seminars on reading, writing and tailoring suits, and on how to avoid AIDS.

Iran opened the doors to its infamous Evin prison Tuesday, offering the international media their first glimpse inside the compound from which stories have emerged of torture, forced confessions and floggings -- dating from before the 1979 Islamic revolution up to the present day. The facility is among those Amnesty International has criticized for abysmal conditions and holding political prisoners without charges.

But Iranian officials boasted Tuesday of the prison's amenities and care for human rights.

''We have nothing to hide from the world,'' prison official Sohrab Soleimani said. ''We invited you here to see for yourself how prisoners are treated and what facilities they enjoy,'' he told reporters.

More than 30 reporters and cameramen roamed the prison's passageways and freely interviewed inmates. Authorities showed off part of the facility that houses female inmates but barred journalists from viewing men's cellblocks or political prisoners, citing lack of time and promising greater access in the future.

At the prison's hospital, female inmates -- mostly young women jailed for illegal sexual relationships -- were attending classes on HIV infection and how to avoid the deadly virus.

The only male prisoners reporters saw Tuesday were in the prison's kitchen, where they were preparing food for fellow inmates.

''This is like work outside jail -- I have no feeling that I'm a prisoner,'' said Ebrahim Hasani, jailed for refusing to pay alimony to his wife.

''We enjoy good facilities here -- I have no objection,'' said Shokat Darabi, a female inmate incarcerated for carrying heroin.

Many female inmates said they were happy with general conditions in the prison, but complained about Iran's judicial process.

''I cannot get a lawyer because I can't afford the expenses ... and the judge refuses to free me on parole,'' said Mahbobeh Asadi, who has been in jail for six months on charges of illegal sex.

Iranian Justice Minister Jamal Karimirad told reporters Tuesday that prisoners were given access to a lawyer, and said the judiciary would assign one if inmates cannot afford to pay.

Other prisoners complained that they were jailed for political, not criminal, reasons.

''I'm in jail on charges of disturbing public opinion,'' said a nervous Nasrin Najmoddin, author of a book she described as rejecting Iranian clerics' hard-line interpretation of Islam.

Evin has been the notorious home to dissidents since before Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution. It was founded by SAVAK, the secret service of the U.S.-allied Iranian ruler Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi.

In recent years, it has again collected a star-studded list of political detainees, among them Ramin Jahanbegloo -- a prominent academic and author of some 20 books, and who heads the office of contemporary studies at the private Cultural Research Bureau in Tehran. Detained at a Tehran airport in April, he is being held without official charges, legal representation or family visits, according to human rights groups.

Another high-profile Evin inmate was Iranian-Canadian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi, arrested in 2003 for taking photos in front of the prison. She died in detention months later of a fractured skull and brain hemorrhage. In November, an appeals court upheld the acquittal of an Iranian intelligence agent and ruled Kazemi's death was not premeditated.

Evin used to house many political prisoners in solitary confinement, in cells prison officials likened to well-equipped hotel rooms. But inmates who spent months there disputed that description.

''I was held in a 2-square-yard cell with no access to radio, television or newspapers,'' said Taqi Rahmani, 46, a leading writer and political dissident who has been in and out of Evin since 1981, on vague charges of seeking to overthrow the ruling Islamic establishment.

''I was simply under psychological torture to give up my political views,'' he said.

Officials said they opened the prison to media Tuesday to dispel myths about human rights violations.

''We have a very appropriate standing in terms of observing human rights,'' Karimirad said at a rare press conference inside the prison walls.

But last year, Iran's judiciary released an unprecedented report acknowledging widespread human rights violations in prisons -- including the use of torture and solitary confinement.

It also confirmed that prison guards and officials in detention centers have ignored a legal order banning torture, and said police have made many arrests without sufficient evidence and held suspects in undeclared detention centers.

In 2004, Iran's judiciary chief, Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, ordered a ban on the use of torture for obtaining confessions -- a move widely seen as the first public acknowledgment of the practice of torture in Iran.

Karimirad said police detained 70 people, most of them women, at a women's rights demonstration Monday but said many of them would be released soon.

At least one young woman was injured when police, using batons and shields, dispersed the crowd in a downtown Tehran square.

When asked if police were right to beat female protesters, Karimirad said, ''No. They have no right to beat anyone. This should be investigated.''