Latest news with #politicalDissidents
Yahoo
30-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Israel's strike on Iran's Evin prison sparks fear for political prisoners
BEIRUT (AP) — Sayeh Seydal, a jailed Iranian dissident, narrowly escaped death when Israeli missiles struck Tehran's Evin Prison, where she was imprisoned. She had just stepped out of the prison's clinic, moments before it was destroyed in the blasts. The June 23 strikes on Iran's most notorious prison for political dissidents killed at least 71 people, including staff, soldiers, visiting family members and people living nearby, Iranian judiciary spokesman Asghar Jahangir said Sunday. In the ensuing chaos, authorities transferred Seydal and others to prisons outside of Tehran — overcrowded facilities, known for their harsh conditions. When she was able to call her family several days ago, Seydal pleaded for help. 'It's literally a slow death,' she said of the conditions, according to a recording of the call provided by her relatives, in accordance with Seydal's wishes. 'The bombing by the U.S. and Israel didn't kill us. Then the Islamic Republic brought us to a place that will practically kill us,' she said. Activists fear Israel's attacks will lead to crackdown Iran's pro-democracy and rights activists fear they will pay the price for Israel's 12-day air campaign aiming to cripple the country's nuclear program. Many now say the state, reeling from the breach in its security, has already intensified its crackdown on opponents. Israel's strike on Evin — targeting, it said, "repressive authorities' — spread panic among families of the political prisoners, who were left scrambling to determine their loved ones' fates. A week later, families of those who were in solitary confinement or under interrogation still haven't heard from them. Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi, a veteran activist who has been imprisoned multiple times in Evin, said that Iranian society, "to get to democracy, needs powerful tools to reinforce civil society and the women's movement.' 'Unfortunately, war weakens these tools,' she said in a video message to The Associated Press from Tehran. Political space is already shrinking with security forces increasing their presence in the streets of the capital, she said. Fears of looming executions Many now fear a potential wave of executions targeting activists and political prisoners. They see a terrifying precedent: After Iran's war with Iraq ended in 1988, authorities executed at least 5,000 political prisoners after perfunctory trials, then buried them in mass graves that have never been accessed. Already during Israel's campaign, Iran executed six prisoners who were sentenced to death before the war. The Washington-based Human Rights Activists in Iran documented nearly 1,300 people arrested, most on charges of espionage, including 300 for sharing content on social media in just 12 days. Parliament is fast-tracking a bill allowing greater use of the death penalty for charges of collaboration with foreign adversaries. The judiciary chief called for expedited proceedings against those who 'disrupt the peace' or "collaborate' with Israel. 'We know what that means. That means show trials and executions,' said Bahar Ghandehari, director of advocacy and media at the New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran. Prisoners scattered after the strike Evin Prison, located in an upscale neighborhood on Tehran's northern edge, housed an estimated 120 men and women in its general wards, as well as hundreds of others believed to be in its secretive security units under interrogation or in solitary confinement, according to HRA. The prisoners include protesters, lawyers and activists who have campaigned for years against Iran's authoritarian rule, corruption and religious laws including enforcement of Islamic attire on women. Authorities have crushed repeated waves of nationwide protests since 2009 in crackdowns that have killed hundreds and jailed thousands. The strikes hit Evin during visiting hours, causing shock and panic. Seydal, an international law scholar who joined protest movements over the past two decades and has been in and out of jail since 2023, recounted to her family her near brush with death in the prison clinic. The blast knocked her to the ground, a relative who spoke to Seydal said, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. Visiting halls, the prosecutor's office and several prisoner wards were also heavily damaged, according to rights groups and relatives of prisoners. One missile hit the prison entrance, where prisoners often are sitting waiting to be taken to hospitals or court. 'Attacking a prison, when the inmates are standing behind closed doors and they are unable to do the slightest thing to save themselves, can never be a legitimate target,' Mohammadi said. Mohammadi was just released in December when her latest sentence was briefly suspended for medical reasons. During the night, buses began transferring prisoners to other facilities, according to Mohammadi and families of prisoners. At least 65 women were sent to Qarchak Prison, according to Mohammadi, who is in touch with them. Men were sent to the Grand Tehran Penitentiary, housing criminals and high-security prisoners. Both are located south of Tehran. Mohammadi told AP that her immediate fear was a lack of medical facilities and poor hygiene. Among the women are several with conditions needing treatment, including 73-year-old civil rights activist Raheleh Rahemi, who has a brain tumor. In her call home, Seydal called Qarchak a 'hellhole.' She said the women were packed together in isolation, with no hygiene care, and limited food or drinkable water. 'It stinks. Just pure filth,' she said. 'She sounded confused, scared and very sad,' her relative said. 'She knows speaking out is very dangerous for her. But also being silent can be dangerous for her.' On Sunday, Sayeh made another call to her family, saying she was briefly taken back to Evin to bring her belongings. The stench of 'death' filled the air, her relative quoted her as saying. The 47-year-old Seydal was first sentenced in 2023. In early 2025, her furlough was canceled, and she was assaulted by security and faced new charges after she refused to wear a chador at the prosecutor's office. A brother disappears Reza Younesi's father and younger brother, Ali, have both been imprisoned at Evin for years. Now the family is terrified because Ali has disappeared. Ali, a 25-year-old graduate of a prestigious technical university, was serving a 16-year sentence for "colluding to commit crimes against national security.' The sentence, widely criticized by rights groups, was reduced but then the Intelligence Ministry launched a new case against him on unknown charges. Days before the strike on Evin, Ali was dragged out of his ward and taken to an unknown location, according to his brother. After the strike, their father, Mir-Yousef Younesi, saw no sign of Ali as he and other prisoners were transferred to the Great Tehran Penitentiary. The father managed to get a call out to his family, in a panic. Disappearances in Evin are not uncommon. Guards sometimes remove political prisoners from wards for interrogation. In some cases, they are sentenced in secret trials and executed. After the strikes, Swedish-Iranian academic Ahmadreza Djalali, sentenced to death in 2017, was transferred from the Tehran prison to an undisclosed location, according to Amnesty International, which expressed fear he could be executed. Reza Younesi said the family lawyer was unable to find out any information about his brother or the new charges. 'We are all worried,' he said, speaking from Sweden where he is an associate professor at Uppsala University. 'When there is no information from a prisoner, this almost in all cases means that the person is under interrogation and torture.' 'All hope is gone' Mehraveh Khandan grew up in a family of political activists. She spent much of her childhood and teen years going to Evin to visit her mother, rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh, who was imprisoned there multiple times. Her father, Reza Khandan, was thrown into Evin in December for distributing buttons opposing the mandatory headscarf for women. Now living in Amsterdam, the 25-year-old Mehraveh Khandan frantically tried to find information about her father after the strike. The internet was cut off, and her mother had evacuated from Tehran. 'I was just thinking who might die there,' she said. It took 24 hours before she got word her father was OK. In a family call later, her father told how he was sleeping on the floor in a crowded cell rife with insects at the Grand Tehran Penitentiary. At first, she thought the Evin strike might prompt the government to release prisoners. But after seeing reports of mass detentions and executions, 'all this hope is gone,' she said. The war 'just destroyed all the things the activists have started to build,' she said.
Globe and Mail
24-06-2025
- Politics
- Globe and Mail
The right and left have converged in their moral confusion on Iran
One of the most vicious institutions on Earth is the Evin Prison in Tehran, where prisoners, many of them political dissidents, are subject to abuse, torture and rape. In her memoir, Prisoner of Tehran, Marina Nemat, who was sent to Evin at 16 for engaging in 'activities against the Islamic government,' provides a firsthand account of the mercilessness and brutality to which those in Evin are subject. In one part of the book, a fellow prisoner describes how she's heard that prison guards will rape girls scheduled for execution because 'they believed virgins went to heaven when they died.' It's just one example of the unconscionable cruelty that upholds Iran's brutal theocracy. This is the Iran that most people in the West don't see, or choose not to see. It is where women are violently removed from the streets – and in the case of Mahsa (Jina) Amini, beaten to death – for wearing their hijabs improperly; where gay people are publicly hanged, and where women cannot engage in various aspects of normal life without permission from their husbands. And the Iranian regime isn't only an oppressive force on its own people – it is a threat to the world through its terrorist proxies and nuclear enrichment activities. When its leaders chant 'Death to America' and 'Death to Israel,' they are not speaking figuratively. Yet, many in the West seem to be suffering from a sort of moral confusion about how to view one of the most objectively vile theocracies on Earth. After Israel carried out targeted killings of Tehran's military and nuclear leadership, as well as strikes on nuclear sites, protesters took to the streets in London and Toronto to oppose 'unprovoked' action by Israel. Ontario's largest public-sector union lent its support to a 'Hands off Iran' rally. Opinion: The Iranian people are caught between forces they cannot control After the U.S. bombing of three nuclear enrichment facilities Saturday, the L.A. County Sheriff's Department issued a statement saying, 'Our hearts go out to the victims and families impacted by the recent bombings in Iran,' as if there were families eating dinner at the Fordow enrichment facility when B-2 bombers dropped bunker-busters. In Canada, the NDP released a statement condemning this 'illegal escalation of violence.' As far as I am aware, the NDP did not release a similar statement about the many times Iranian leadership has pledged to wipe Israel off the map and attacked it through its terrorist proxies, nor did the party do so in response to the International Atomic Energy Agency's finding that Iran had breached its non-proliferation obligations. This moral confusion is no doubt rooted in the antipathy many in the West hold for both Israel and the United States. Their reflexive response thus appears to be to lurch in defence of Israel's enemies – its targets – even if those targets, according to thousands of documents obtained in 2018, have long pursued nuclear weapons. The war in Gaza is undoubtedly shaping Western perspectives on the operation in Iran, but what it shouldn't do is obscure the danger of a nuclear Iran. Indeed, one can abhor the actions of Israel in Gaza, but also accept that Iran poses a bigger threat to the West. Opinion: The U.S. military's show of force in Iran sends a message to every global capital This conflict has revealed a curious convergence of opinion between the pacifist left and the isolationist right – the latter of whom are wary of another Iraq-style 'forever' war and, similar to those on the left, believe that the actions from Israel and the U.S. were largely unprovoked. These are individuals such as broadcaster Tucker Carlson, former congressman Matt Gaetz, comedian-turned-pundit Dave Smith and others, who are supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump but loudly opposed U.S. intervention in the region. Mr. Smith, for example, condemned Mr. Trump's 'war of aggression' on 'a country who posed no threat to us' (never mind the proxies that killed American citizens in Gaza, targeted shipping routes and launched attacks in the Red Sea) and later praised the Iranians for showing restraint in their ballistic response. What appears to be happening among this cohort is that opposition to the U.S.'s timing and manner of action in the region is clouding the view of the isolationist right to this violent theocracy's stated goals. One could make the argument that it was wrong for the U.S. to join Israel's operation (though if there was any time to intervene militarily, it would be with Hamas pummelled, Hezbollah decapitated, the Houthis weakened, Bashar al-Assad in exile, China distracted, and Russia still fighting another war), and that none of this was worth the unfortunate but inevitable civilian casualties. But that argument is distinct from one that claims that Iran's 60-per-cent enriched uranium is nothing to worry about. We should be clear-eyed about the brutality, the viciousness and the threat posed by the Iranian regime.
Reuters
23-05-2025
- Politics
- Reuters
US top diplomat in Havana promises more sanctions on Cuba
HAVANA, May 23 (Reuters) - The United States' top diplomat in Havana said on Friday the U.S. had more sanctions in store for Cuba just days after punishing several Cuban judicial officials for their roles in jailing political dissidents on the island. Three Cuban judges and a prosecutor were forbidden from entering the United States on Wednesday, the latest sanctions from the Trump administration, which earlier declared a tough new policy on Cuba. "The sanctions announced this Wednesday were just the beginning," U.S. Embassy chief of mission Mike Hammer told reporters in Miami. "This administration is determined to sanction repressors. There will be consequences for their actions." U.S. President Donald Trump has already doubled down on sanctions since taking office in January, returning longtime foe Cuba to a U.S. list of State Sponsors of Terrorism, tightening rules on remittances and shutting off Biden-era migration programs. The 61-year-old Hammer, a career U.S. diplomat who arrived in Cuba just six months ago, has kept a busy schedule, wandering the country widely as he talks with dissidents, small business owners and Cubans of all walks of life. In videos produced by the U.S. embassy and shared on social media, Hammer, fluent in Spanish, plays dominoes with a group of children in Camaguey, visits the tomb of Cuban hero Jose Marti in Santiago and speaks with family members of jailed dissidents in homes throughout Cuba. His travels come as Cubans confront the worst economic downturn in decades, a growing crisis the Cuban government blames on the Cold War-era U.S. embargo, a web of restrictions that complicates financial transactions, trade and tourism. Hammer told reporters on Friday that those Cubans he had spoken with in his travels disagreed that the U.S. was to blame. "The people recognize that those responsible are the Cuban regime, it has nothing to do with any policy of the United States." His travels and assertions have infuriated the Cuban government, which accuses Hammer of seeking to stir up resentment in a bid to overthrow the island's communist leadership. But Cuba has not impeded Hammer's travels, despite issuing a recent warning in state-run media that its "patience has limits." Hammer told reporters he would continue his work on the island. "What are they scared of? I'm just a simple chief of mission talking with the people," he said.
