Iranian guards ‘break kneecaps of pensioner, 70, during interrogation in hellhole jail after she was jailed for anti-governmental protests’
- Mahvash Sabet Shahriari was said to have had her kneecaps broken in Evin jail
- She had been serving a 10-year prison sentence for anti-government protests
A 70-year-old grandmother has reportedly had her kneecaps broken by Iranian prison officials in Tehran’s notorious Evin jail.
Human rights campaigner Mahvash Sabet Shahriari was said to have been under interrogation by officials when she was inflicted with the barbaric punishment.
She had been serving a 10-year prison sentence in Evin jail for participating in anti-government protests.
The news of the attack emerged from independent Iranian media which said the activist’s knees had been broken by an interrogator during questioning.
Evin jail has a brutal reputation for its inhumane living conditions and merciless treatment of its detainees, with prisoners frequently subject to beatings and torture.
Mahvash Sabet Shahriari was said to have been under interrogation by officials when she was inflicted with the barbaric punishment.
Mahvash Sabet Shahriari, with her husband. Her knees were reportedly broken during interrogation in Evin Prison in Tehran, Iran
Evin prison has been labelled a hellhole and has a reputation for its inhumane living conditions and merciless treatment of its detainees
Frud Sabet, son of Shahriari, said he was yet to hear of his mother’s condition since her initial trial.
He told RFERL Radio Farda: ‘The family is very worried about her health. We don’t know where she is, and we don’t know if she’s alive.’
Shahriari, a poet, was seized last summer as part of the Iranian regime’s repression of the Baha’i community that saw several community leaders detained.
The Bahaʼi faith is a religion that counts up to eight million members in the world.
It was founded in the 19th century and developed in Iran and other areas of the Middle East, where its members have faced ongoing persecution.
The Islamic Republic of Iran does not recognise the Baha’i faith and the nation’s judicial authorities have repeatedly called them ‘spies and enemies’ and issued death sentences, arrests and prison terms.
Followers are often deprived of education and banned from working, according to Radio Farda, the Iranian branch of the US-government-funded Radio Free Europe.
‘We assume that the overcrowding of prisons and courts has affected my mother’s fate,’ Sabet told RFERL Radio Farda.
‘But being completely unaware of her after issuing such a heavy sentence is not justified,’ her son added.
Shahriari was seized last summer as part of the Iranian regime’s repression of the Baha’i community that saw several community leaders detained
Shahriari’s son said he was yet to hear of his mother’s condition since her initial trial
Human rights activists and international organisations have repeatedly called out the Iranian authorities for the ‘systematic violation of human rights’ against members of the Baha’i faith, with widespread arrests and heavy sentences inflicted on them.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has repeatedly called the Baha’i faith a cult and in 2018 issued a religious fatwa.
As well as discrimination against those from the Baha’i faith, other Iranians are not allowed to have contact with them or engage in business with them.
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