The detained women said iran has a long history of deporting people arrested for drug trafficking and finding hidden drugs. But never before have political prisoners been subjected to such disrobing, certainly not in front of the camera. In early june last year, the Iranian judiciary dismissed allegations that it had filmed naked prisoners. He rejected accusations such as "war against Iran" and "Western propaganda against Iran".
In mid-June, however, the head of the Iranian Parliament's Judiciary Committee said that "only the guards will watch the videos of the prisoners."He admitted that the prisoners were filmed. Some women even report being told to remove their sanitary napkins during menstruation. They also said they were told to remove them and sit up as if exercising.
They are doing this to humiliate us," says Moskan Keshavers, a former female political prisoner. She spent almost three years in jail. She spent most of her imprisonment in Evin and Karchak prisons, the worst prisons in Tehran province. Her jail term ended in january 2022. She claims she was strip-searched three times in front of security cameras during her imprisonment.
A third time, Keshavers says, a female prison guard stripped her naked and photographed her. Then Keshavers objected to it. But she was told that this was done to counter future complaints that prisoners had been tortured. "Who will watch these videos? Will the government use them to oppress us in the future? asks Keshavers, pointing out that even after her prison term is over, she is at risk of intimidation over the videos.
Both times I was arrested I was strip-searched and the officers made fun of my body," Said Elahe Ejbari, a rights activist for the Baloch minority.
The officer who interrogated her said she had warmed him with a cigarette and showed a scar on his hand. Ejbari was first arrested in september 2020 in Tehran on charges of 'propaganda against the Islamic Republic of Iran'. Evin spent six weeks in prison.
She was arrested a second time in november 2022 and held in an undisclosed location for three days. After receiving constant threatening calls from security forces that she was about to be arrested, she fled Iran.
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