Research Report: Political Prisoners in Iran are Subjected to 'Pharmaceutical Torture'

The Committee for the Struggle for the Freedom of Political Prisoners has documented the Islamic Republic of Iran's use of 'pharmaceutical torture' during recent protests following the death of Mahsa Amini while in custody of the Guidance Patrol. This committee states that pharmaceutical torture has increased 'alarmingly' during this period. The Committee for the Struggle for the Freedom of Political Prisoners has gathered this information from several prisons across Iran, including in Tehran, Baluchistan, Kurdistan, Khuzestan, Qom, and Khorasan. Prisoners have described to this committee instances where prison guards poured medication or drugs into their drinks, leading to states of 'delirium' and in some cases, unconsciousness. Medications such as Diazepam, Xanax, Haloperidol, Chlordiazepoxide, and Clonazepam have been identified by several prisoners. The report also references suspicious deaths of detainees from recent protests after their release, none of which have been officially investigated by authorities, and families have not been allowed to conduct independent inquiries into the deaths of their loved ones. The Committee for the Struggle for the Freedom of Political Prisoners emphasizes that the psychological recovery of individuals subjected to 'pharmaceutical torture' occurs with 'greater delay'. In this report, several prisoners have been interviewed, and they have described being forced to take these often unidentified medications. Among them is a 27-year-old woman in West Azerbaijan province who reported repeated torture and rape during detention and emphasized that she was coerced into taking 'unknown pills', which led to 'psychosis' in her. This woman committed suicide after her release and lost one of her kidneys. A 22-year-old woman from Tehran also stated that she was given medication twice a day and was threatened with punishment if she refused to take the drugs. They did not disclose the nature of the medication, but as this woman testified, it was 'colorless and odorless' and caused severe pain and intense heat in the back of her neck, and she felt unwell in the absence of the medication. She has reported currently facing vision problems. Many individuals who died after their release had no prior mental health issues or were not on medication before their arrest, but government officials consistently attributed their deaths to 'suicide', 'sudden death', or 'overdose of medication or drugs'. The report from the Committee for the Struggle for the Freedom of Political Prisoners has been sent to global organizations, including the UN Human Rights Council's fact-finding committee, governments, parliament members, and unions. This committee has called on the international human rights community to investigate and take decisive action regarding the widespread use of pharmaceutical torture in the prisons of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Previously, researchers and human rights activists have repeatedly warned about the conditions in Iranian prisons. Amnesty International had referred to the abuses revealed in Evin Prison in Tehran as 'the tip of the iceberg of an epidemic of torture in Iran'. The 'unsanitary' conditions of Qarchak and Greater Tehran prisons have also been exposed by human rights sources. Shirin Ebadi, a lawyer and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, has previously described the conditions in Iranian prisons as 'very dire'.