Iran’s penal authorities sought on Monday to discredit reports of a violent clash last week inside the political detainee block in Tehran’s Evin Prison, calling them fabrications fomented by enemies of the government.
The head of the Iran Prisons Organization, Gholam Hossein Esmaili, was quoted by the official news media as saying that the incident in question, which a variety of news outlets said occurred on Thursday, was nothing more than resistance to a routine and successful inspection for contraband such as cellphones.
Foreign-based Persian-language satellite news channels and opposition websites, which have wide audiences in Iran although they are officially banned, reported that Evin security guards in Ward 350, backed by agents of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and the Intelligence Ministry, had stormed the cellblock in a violent clash that left more than 30 detainees injured, some seriously.
Esmail Barzgari
An account on Iranwire.com, a news agency started last year by expatriate Iranian journalists, said two prominent detainees, Omid Behroozi, a lawyer, and Esmail Barzgari, a musician, had been hospitalized with ruptured blood vessels and broken ribs and later placed in solitary confinement, tied to their beds.
The website, which carries coverage highly critical of the government, did not provide the source of the information but quoted Mr. Behroozi’s father, Omid, as saying in an interview that “some of the prisoners are dying there. Whom should I ask about my son?”
Iranwire also quoted the daughter of Abdolfattah Soltani, an imprisoned rights lawyer, as saying the inmates had resisted the inspection because in the past the guards had taken their belongings, but the response of the guards on this occasion “was to beat them.”
Amnesty International, the London-based human rights group that has frequently criticized Iran’s judicial system, said there were reports that at least 32 detainees had been placed in solitary confinement because of the incident.
Accounts of a violent clash were so widespread that on Sunday, relatives of the inmates demonstrated outside the Parliament building to protest, the Iranian Students’ News Agency reported. Such demonstrations are highly unusual in the capital, where any unauthorized political demonstrations are quickly suppressed. The news agency said a moderate member of Parliament, Ali Mottahari, attended the demonstration.
Mr. Mottahari was also among the members of Parliament who summoned Mr. Esmaili and other officials to explain what had happened. Both Mr. Esmaili and Justice Minister Mostafa Pourmohammadi denied there had been an attack, according to official news accounts of their response, but conceded that two inmates who had resisted “were slightly injured.”
Mr. Esmaili went further, saying on Monday that an unidentified prisoner had been responsible for “spreading untrue news” and now faced new criminal charges. “The connections with the enemies of the system have been cut because of our inspection,” official news media quoted him as telling members of Parliament.
The issue of political prisoners remains a highly sensitive topic in Iran, a legacy of the violent suppression of protests over the disputed 2009 presidential elections that gave the incumbent, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, what opposition leaders called a rigged victory.
Despite promises by Mr. Ahmadinejad’s successor, Hassan Rouhani, to loosen some of the constraints on Iranian society, and an initial release of detainees after Mr. Rouhani took office last August, dissidents and expatriates say little has changed. They also point to an increased number of public executions in Iran under Mr. Rouhani as a sign that a repressive atmosphere persists.
By RICK GLADSTONE
Thomas Erdbrink contributed reporting from Tehran.
Photo: Omid Behroozi
NY Times