Prisoners cramped into prisons with little space

Tehran- March 5, 2011
The head of the Prison Organizations, Qolamhussein Ismaieli said, “In the past one and half years, 55 thousand people were added to the total number of prisoners in Iran”. This is while prison space has not even increased 55 meters.
“Currently, the capacity of prisons across the country is to hold 85 thousand prisoners but these prisons hold more than 220 thousand prisoners”.
These figures are only a part of the true figures and do not include prisoners in secret detention centers, safe homes which belong to the RGC and the Ministry of Intelligence and other secret and suppressive institutions.

Daughter of female executed political prisoner under pressure and threats one month after mother’s execution

Tehran- March 2, 2011
One month after the inhumane death sentence for political prisoner Zahra Bahrami was carried out, interrogators of the Intelligence Agency and Tehran Prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolat Abadi refuse to hand over her will and personal belongings to her family.
Reza Arefi, an interrogator and torturer who works for the Intelligence Agency in the Sepah Cellblock in Gohardasht Prison in Karaj, summoned Bahrami’s daughter, Banafsheh Naebpour, and her husband some time ago to the Karaj Intelligence Agency and interrogated and threatened them for a prolonged amount of time. Arefi told her that if she called the Dutch Embassy (Zahra Bahrami had a dual Dutch-Iranian nationality) the media or human rights activists she and her husband would be arrested.
He also threatened that they would charge her mother with immoral conduct in a TV show called 20:30 to bring disgrace to their family. Arefi also told them that they were not allowed to put a stone on her grave and no more than 10 people were allowed to go to her gravesite at one time.

The critical condition of political prisoner Zahra Jabari

Tehran- March.4, 2011
The health of Zahra Jabari who was arrested on Qods Day’s protests of 2009 is critical and she is receiving no medical treatment.
She is suffering from heart problems and progressive rheumatism because of which she can hardly walk.

Iranian regime downplays major protests in Tehran

Tehran- March 5, 2011
The Fars News Agency which is run by the Revolutionary Guards Corps wrote in a report simultaneously with the Tehran protests that ‘Tehran was calm’.
This state-run daily wrote: ‘Anti-revolutionary groups like the Monafeghin (PMOI)… who were trying to create unrest in the streets of Tehran with the support of western propaganda institutions… failed again in their conspiracies’.
‘The timely presence of security forces and the people’s Bassij forces on the scene prevented the anti-revolutionary elements from making any moves’.