I’ve covered enough prison stories to know when something crosses the line from brutal to catastrophic. What’s unfolding inside Iran’s detention facilities right now is exactly that.
Vida Mehrannia got two minutes with her husband on March 3. That’s all the connection allowed before it cut out. Her husband, Ahmadreza Djalali, was calling from Evin Prison while explosions shook Tehran around him. He told her the gates were locked. If fire broke out, he had nowhere to go.
Djalali is a Swedish Iranian scientist who went to Iran in 2016 for an academic workshop. He never left. The regime arrested him, convicted him of espionage, and sentenced him to death. International investigations have repeatedly called the charges baseless. His family has fought for his release for nearly a decade. Today, he’s trapped in a locked cell while bombs fall outside.
He’s not alone. Thousands of political prisoners sit in Iranian facilities right now facing dual threats. American and Israeli strikes rain down from above. A vengeful regime controls them from within. Both dangers are very real.
Iran’s prison population exploded after January’s crackdown on protesters. Thousands died in the streets. Tens of thousands more were arrested. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps admitted summoning at least 11,000 people. A judicial spokesperson said more than 10,000 were referred for prosecution by late February. Human rights organizations believe the actual number of detainees could reach 50,000. That includes minors.
Getting accurate information out has become nearly impossible. The regime shut down the internet when strikes began. Communication has been severed or severely limited. Families outside Iran are left in agonizing uncertainty about loved ones who cannot reach safety.
Evin Prison sits in northern Tehran. Researchers at Iran Human Rights Monitor estimate it holds roughly 1,500 to 2,000 detainees. People sometimes call it “Evin University” because of how many academics are imprisoned there. The nickname masks a darker reality.
Multiple reports and survivor accounts describe systematic mistreatment and torture inside Evin. Some of that abuse has proven fatal. Political protesters, dissidents, opposition members, and journalists face particularly harsh treatment. The facility has a documented history of human rights violations.
Conditions have deteriorated sharply since the strikes began. Prisoners who managed to contact family members describe rapidly worsening situations. On February 28, food distribution stopped in the women’s ward. Prisoners received only limited bread. Electronic cards that inmates use to purchase food and water from prison shops stopped working, according to a March 6 Amnesty International report.
Maryam Fakhar, a senior analyst at Iran Human Rights Monitor, confirmed verified reports of severe overcrowding. Sanitary conditions are collapsing. Medical care is being denied or delayed even as interrogations continue. Phone calls and visitation rights have been restricted further.
Djalali told his wife many guards abandoned their posts. Prisoners weren’t receiving food or supplies. A grocery store inside the facility closed when bombing started. He’s been surviving on old bread he saved. The worry in Mehrannia’s voice when she described this was unmistakable.
Some reports indicate the NOPO special police unit has taken control of Evin. That shift doesn’t inspire confidence among families or human rights monitors.
Prisons don’t appear to be deliberate strike targets. But damage has occurred anyway. Facilities in Ahwaz have been hit. On March 3, part of Evin’s wall was struck. Iran Human Rights Monitor verified reports that a missile attack destroyed a section of the prison wall near Imam Hossein University. No confirmed information about prisoner injuries emerged, but the structural damage is documented.
Qarchak is a women’s prison with a well-documented record of poor conditions and abuse. Fakhar described the situation there as critical. Administrative and medical staff left their posts when attacks escalated. Prisoners face drinking water shortages and uncertainty managing basic daily needs. Staff at Chabahar and Konarak prisons in Sistan and Baluchestan province also reportedly abandoned their positions.
Some prisoners have been moved to unknown locations. That’s particularly concerning given Iran’s history with disappeared detainees. Homa Fathi, an Iranian academic and activist based in Canada, said inmates from Ward 209 were transferred. Ward 209 is a high-security facility within Evin with a documented history of solitary confinement and torture.
In Dastgerd Prison in Isfahan, political prisoners including journalist Heshmatollah Tabarzadi were moved to unknown locations. Tabarzadi has been imprisoned, often in solitary confinement, since the 2009 Green Movement protests. The Committee to Protect Journalists reports at least 15 journalists are currently behind bars in Iran.
The exact number of at-risk prisoners cannot be independently verified. Authorities conceal data and frequently transfer detainees without documentation. Fakhar explained that experts estimate thousands of political prisoners are likely held across various facilities throughout Iran. That’s thousands of people whose locations and conditions remain unknown to their families.
On the evening of March 3, the Basij center near Mahabad prison was bombed. Military forces responded with violence and tear gas, attempting to force prisoners into more confined spaces. That tactical decision puts already vulnerable people at even greater risk.
Fathi maintains a comprehensive list of detained healthcare workers arrested over the years. Many were taken after recent mass demonstrations for helping injured protesters. Around 100 healthcare professionals that she’s tracking have been arrested. Roughly half were released on bail. Accusations against them are often unclear or baseless. In many cases, families don’t know where they’re being held.
The regime has a documented history of abusing and killing detainees. Reports indicate some prisoners were moved to facility basements for torture. An Iranian opposition group claimed the regime executed 353 prisoners between January 20 and February 18, following street killings of protesters. Activists fear a repeat of the 1988 massacres when thousands of political prisoners were executed toward the end of the Iran-Iraq War.
Amnesty International’s March 3 report noted that concerns for prisoner safety stem from historical evidence. Iranian authorities have repeatedly used armed conflict as pretext to intensify torture patterns and carry out summary, arbitrary, or extrajudicial executions. The regime’s documented record of crimes under international law compounds those concerns.
United Nations officials have expressed similar warnings. On March 4, a Human Rights Council probe warned that Iranian prisoners face expedited death penalty proceedings. Independent rights experts cited credible reports that many prisoners are at serious risk of torture, ill-treatment, and enforced disappearances.
Fathi emphasized the importance of naming these prisoners publicly. Otherwise, she said, they become anonymous. That makes it easier to kill them without accountability.
Mehrannia’s fears for her husband are particularly acute. Djalali suffered a heart attack last year. During detention, he went on hunger strike three times to protest prisoner treatment. He lost significant weight, becoming emaciated. His health is already compromised before facing current dangers.
Family members and activists are calling for the release of political prisoners across Iran. Fakhar pointed to Resolution 211 of Iran’s Supreme Judicial Council, adopted in January 1987. That directive requires the judiciary to protect prisoners’ lives during wartime or emergencies. Failure to do so constitutes a crime against humanity.
After covering congressional accountability for years, I’ve learned that documentation matters. Recording names, dates, and verified facts creates the evidence trail that eventually forces accountability. That’s why human rights monitors are working desperately to document what’s happening inside these facilities despite information blackouts.
The international community faces complex calculations about strikes on Iran. Those strategic decisions happen at levels far above my reporting beat. But what’s not complex is the moral calculation about innocent people trapped in locked cells while explosions shake the walls around them.
Mehrannia’s voice carried exhaustion and fear when she described her decade-long fight. Her husband is serving a sentence despite being innocent. Now he’s under attack in a locked facility. She stated it simply: This is not normal. This is not okay.
She’s right. After two decades covering political accountability, I’ve seen governments justify many actions in the name of security or strategy. But there’s no justification for leaving thousands of political prisoners trapped in facilities where they cannot reach safety, cannot access food or water, and face torture or execution from the regime holding them.
The information blackout makes verification difficult. But enough reports have emerged from multiple credible sources to establish a clear pattern. Prisoners are being denied basic necessities. Facilities are sustaining damage. Staff are abandoning posts. Detainees are being moved to unknown locations. Executions are being expedited.
These aren’t statistics. They’re people. Scientists like Djalali who attended academic workshops. Healthcare workers who treated injured protesters. Journalists who reported news. Students who demonstrated for freedom. All of them now trapped between falling bombs and a vengeful regime.
The March 6 Amnesty International report called for the release of political prisoners. UN human rights experts have issued similar calls. Those appeals are grounded in both humanitarian concern and legal frameworks designed to protect civilians during armed conflict.
Resolution 211 exists for exactly this scenario. Wartime and emergencies require additional protections for the most vulnerable, including prisoners who cannot flee danger or defend themselves. Ignoring those protections doesn’t just violate Iranian law. It violates international humanitarian law.
I’ve reported from Washington long enough to know that geopolitical calculations rarely prioritize individual human lives. Strategic interests dominate policy decisions. But journalism exists to center those individual stories that policy discussions too often abstract into statistics.
Mehrannia has been fighting for ten years. She deserves better than two-minute phone calls cut short by bad connections. Djalali deserves better than surviving on saved bread while locked in a cell during bombing raids. The thousands of other political prisoners facing similar conditions deserve better than being disappeared, tortured, or executed while international attention focuses elsewhere.
The regime has a choice about how it treats the people in its custody. So far, that choice has consistently prioritized control and revenge over basic humanity. The international community has a choice about whether to make protection of political prisoners a priority in diplomatic and strategic calculations.
Those choices have consequences measured in human lives. Right now, those lives are hanging in a very precarious balance.
