On June 20, the Israeli army bombed the prison of Evin, the Haut-Lieu of the symbol of political repression in Iran. Behind his dismal high walls languish hundreds of dissidents, journalists, students and artists. Human rights activist Narges Mohammadi, winner of the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize, was also there during this precision attack, which occurred in the middle of the day, at the time of visits.
Our photographer Mariam Rahmanian was able to go to the scene as part of a visit organized by the Ministry of Information. She could see that several sectors of the penitentiary complex, including the infirmary, the visits district, the main entrance and the administrative building were reduced to the state of dust. The head of Iranian judiciary, Gholamhossein Mohseni, said that members of the prison staff, magistrates of the Tehran prosecutor’s office, as well as families of prisoners had been killed during the strike. The official assessment amounts to 79 dead, but several diplomatic sources advance a higher figure.
The prisoners were transferred
According to the semi-supply site Tabnak, all the prisoners were transferred to other establishments in the province of Tehran in the hours which followed the attack. The press release evokes a decision taken “to protect the rights of prisoners and facilitate access to help” The transfer places would include the prisons of Qarchak and Fashafouyeh, known for their extremely degraded conditions.
The French hostages Cécile Kohler and Jacques Paris, detained since 2022 for charges of spying, received the visit of a French diplomat on Tuesday, announced the Minister of Foreign Affairs Jean-Noël Barrot. “We obtained, after having exerted a very strong pressure on the Iranian authorities, a visit today (Tuesday) on the part of our project manager in Iran,” said the Minister before the National Assembly, without specifying where this visit was held.
Regularly denounced by NGOs for its conditions of detention and the ill -treatment inflicted, Evin has embodied the brutality of the Mollahs repressive apparatus for decades. Built in the 1970s under the reign of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to enclose opponents of the monarchy, it quickly became a symbol of state terror. After the Islamic Revolution of 1979, the new regime did not dismantle the institution: he seized it. Evin thus remained the place of confinement of unwanted voices, now buried in the silence of the rubble.
