Serious concerns over Political Prisoners in Section 350

Misagh Jalalzadeh
Translation : Persian2English

A large amount of those arrested throughout the summer were sent to cells controlled by the Revolutionary Guard in wards 240, 209, and 2A. In an attempt to receive false confessions, the prisoners were placed under brutal torture and mental and physical pressure. They also had to confess participation in dirty schemes powered by foreign agents intended to instigate a velvet revolution.

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From October 2009, the process of transferring post-election political prisoners to public sections [of the prison] began. It was first a few student activists like Peyman Aref, Majid Dori, and Zia Navabi (banned students), along with approximately 60 others who were arrested in street protests, and also some human rights activists like Mohammad Ali Dadkhah. They were taken out of solitary confinement cells and were transferred to cells that held regular prisoners. They were transferred because of the possibility of the Parliamentary Inquiry Committee visiting Evin prison.
But the tragic part started when in late October, after Peyman Aref and Majid Dori’s letter to a Tehran prosecutor was published, and together with media presence, security officials decided to remove a few reformist activists from the high-security sections. They gathered the prisoners in public section 350. Additionally, the Green Movement prisoners of this section were confronted, abused, and tortured by Bozorgnia, the notorious chief of section 350.
From early November, around 80 of the Green Movement prisoners were transferred to ward 350, a remote underground area. The following are some names of reformist political activists, journalists, and student activists:

- Davood Soleimani
- Jahanbakhsh Khanjani
- Hedayat Aghaei
- Hamzeh Karami
- Ahmad Zeydabadi
- Masoud Lavasan,
- Mohamadreza Noorbakhsh
- Peyman Aref
- Bahman Ahmadi Moei
- Reza Rafiyi
- Abdollah Momeni
- Masoud Bastani
- Majid Dori
- Ali Bikas
- Zia Nabavi

Even though it seemed they were under the control of the Prisons Organization, they were actually being controlled by Bozorgnia, who is a representative of the Ministry of Intelligence operated by the Ahmadinejad government.
Bozorgnia first held political prisoners in a poorly lit basement (of Section 350). On the upstairs floor, dangerous criminals are receiving rehabilitation and are able to use the telephones in addition to other aminities. In the basement there is only one phone booth set up. Each prisoner is able to use for five minutes a day.

It is now apparent that Rasool Badaghi (teacher activist) and Jafar Eghdami are also being held in section 350.

Recently, Bozorgnia has ordered a humiliating and disrespectful body inspection of political prisoners when they go to the weekly meetings with their families(meetings that are in cabins and with glass walls in between). He also uses insulting and dirty language toward the prisoners who are well respected in Iranian civil society.

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*Mohammad Hossein Sohrabi Rad attempts suicide by cutting his left wrist after increased pressures and spending a few days in the hospital and Evin clinic. He feared going back to section 350. Immediately after recovering, he attempted suicide again. Despite numerous attempts to contact political prisoners to get insider information on Mohammad, our attempts were unsuccessful. There is a possibility that he has died already.
The irony is that there is another Kahrizak being formed in Section 350 and more martyrs are joining the Husseinian Martyrs of the Green Movement. A human catastrophe is about to occur and the fault is on no one but Bozorgnia, an official with a past too shameful to retell.
Section 350 of Evin Prison
January 2010
Iran Press News