Evin Prison

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Evin Prison (زندان اوین) is a prison in Iran, located in the north of Tehran ^[1]. It is notorious for its political prisoners' wing, from before the 1979 Iranian Revolution and since. It was founded by SAVAK during the reign of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, on what was previously the house of Seyyed Zia'eddin Tabatabaee.

The prison is located in a residential and commercial area known as Evin, next to the Saadat Abad district. There is a large park area with a popular upscale teahouse and restaurant located immediately next to it.

Photography in front of and around the prison is illegal. On June 23, 2003, Iranian-Canadian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi was arrested for taking photographs in front of the prison, an imprisonment which led to her beating and death in Iranian custody. Doctors examining Kazemi found evidence of rape, torture with fingernails torn out, toes crushed and skull fracture - evidence of how sensitive the Evin prison is considered by the Iranian government.

Notable prisoners at Evin before the 1979 revolution include Ayatollah Mahmoud Taleghani and Grand Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri.

Recent notable political prisoners held at Evin have included Akbar Ganji (held there from 2000 to 2006), Mohsen Sazegara (in 2003), Nasser Zarafshan, as well as the convert to Christianity Hamid Pourmand (2005-6), Dariush Zahedi, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley, on charges of espionage (2003), subsequently acquitted in 2004, and Ramin Jahanbegloo.

Current prisoners include Ahmad Batebi.

[edit] See also

Human rights in Islamic Republic of Iran
Massacre of Iranian political prisoners
Towhid Prison
Prison 59
Gohardasht Prison
Prison 209

[edit] External links

That garden and its wishes, an article by Masoud Behnoud in Rooz on the Evin prison.
Inside Iran's most notorious jail, BBC News report on a visit to the prison given by a group of domestic and foreign journalists.