Maryam Akbari Monfared's Testimony: Foreign Ambassadors Saw a Beautified Facade of Iran's Prisons

Maryam Akbari Monfared, a political prisoner in Iran, published a letter in response to foreign ambassadors' visit to Evin Prison, testifying to the "lack of minimum human rights" for inmates in this prison and others in Tehran. Her letter, released on Wednesday, August 9, on the website of the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, stated that the ambassadors only saw the "beautified facade of the Islamic regime's prisons." In the letter, she expressed a wish that the tall, green trees under which the ambassadors spent hours talking could speak and recount the scenes they have witnessed since they were mere saplings, including the bloodshed of countless innocent people. Maryam Akbari Monfared lost her brother and sister during the mass executions of political prisoners in Iran in 1988. She herself was arrested during the Ashura protests in 2009 and sentenced to 15 years in prison for moharebeh (waging war against God). She wrote that during this time she has witnessed moments and conditions in prison that "the pen cannot describe." The images published last month by Iranian media from the visit of 45 foreign ambassadors to Evin Prison were accompanied by statements from some ambassadors, such as those from South Korea, Indonesia, and Portugal, who described the conditions of the prison as very good and impressive. The ambassadors also visited the sewing workshop, medical section, and gym of Evin, which, according to Kazem Gharibabadi, Deputy for International Affairs of the Judiciary's Human Rights Headquarters, aimed to discredit "baseless and unfounded claims by some countries regarding human rights issues against Iran." However, Maryam Akbari Monfared criticized Gharibabadi's remarks in her letter, stating: "My point is that despite the very good conditions in your prisons, why have the UN Special Rapporteurs on Human Rights, Mr. Ahmed Shaheed and now Ms. Asma Jahangir, never been allowed to enter Iran, let alone visit the prisons?" She also referenced Gharibabadi's comments about the "valuable health services" in the prison, pointing to the deaths of some political prisoners like Mohsen Dokmechi and Hadi Saber, which were due to "lack of medical facilities in Evin Prison." She then stated that as someone approaching her eighth year in prison, she witnesses the deteriorating health of her fellow inmates daily, including individuals like "Mahvash Shahriari, who is nearing her tenth year of imprisonment," and "Kobra Banazadeh, Nahid Malek Mohammadi, and Motahareh Bahrami," who have been released but suffered from multiple illnesses while incarcerated. She added that in the prisons of Shahr-e Rey, Gohardasht, and Evin, she has witnessed the special guards' batons on the frail bodies of women and girls and "fights for food and bread" due to the scarcity of daily rations. Previously, some political and human rights activists had called the visit of foreign ambassadors to Evin Prison "engineered," and Shirin Ebadi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, stated that on the day of the visit, "at least twenty political and financial prisoners were transferred from Evin Prison to the IRGC's Ward 2A under the pretext of being summoned to the prosecutor's office and court" to prevent them from having a "meeting" with the ambassadors. In this context, Shirin Ebadi reported on the "transfer of political prisoners" during the ambassadors' visit to Evin Prison.