Latest news with #PoliticalPrisoners
New York Times
26-07-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
What Iranians Lost When Israel Bombed Its Most Notorious Prison
The clock in Evin Prison stopped just before noon on June 23. That was the hour Israeli bombs tore through the compound, heavily damaging the health clinic, visitation center, administrative buildings and multiple wards — including the infamous Ward 209, where Evin's many political prisoners were held. The attack took place amid 12 days of Israeli airstrikes, an unlawful war targeting Iran's military and nuclear facilities. But Evin is no military site: It is known for holding the regime's dissenters and critics. Israeli authorities called the strike on Evin 'symbolic'— an attack on a prison that represented 'oppression for the Iranian people.' In a social media post, Israel's foreign minister Gideon Saar suggested it was a strike aimed at liberation. That symbolism did not ring true for the many Iranians killed in the blasts: visiting family members, social workers, medical staffers, teenage conscripts tasked with escorting prisoners and inmates, among them transgender prisoners whose ward was reduced to rubble. Anguished families were left scrambling for news of their loved ones. Prisoners who were already at risk were pushed into deeper peril — relocated to distant prisons, cut off from support and left to endure even harsher conditions under the unrelenting grip of a regime that punishes survival itself. If there's anything symbolic in Israel's bombing of Evin Prison, it is the false and dangerous narrative that wars help those fighting to bring democracy to Iran. Far from weakening the Islamic Republic's apparatus of repression, Israel's war has emboldened it, rolling back the fragile gains won through years of homegrown civil defiance. It has sabotaged decades of grass-roots organizing and collective labor by Iran's civil society, tearing through the very scaffolding of democratic resistance and undermining the only force capable of changing Iran from within: the Iranian people. I come from a long lineage of resistance to repression and tyranny. I was born in Evin Prison in 1983. My parents were secular leftist activists who fought to overthrow the Shah, and after the 1979 revolution continued their activism against the newly established Islamic Republic. In 1983, when my mother was pregnant with me, she and my father were arrested along with thousands of other political activists. After I was born, I stayed with her for a month before I was taken from her arms and given to my grandparents, who raised me while my parents remained behind bars. They were eventually released after serving yearslong sentences. My parents' arrest came during a wave of mass detentions and intimidation targeting the regime's political opponents. By 1983, as the Iran-Iraq war raged on, the regime used the conflict to justify a sweeping crackdown, framing dissent as treason in times of national crisis. My mother and father's imprisonment took place amid a ruthless campaign of repression that would culminate in 1988 in the bloodiest political purge in Iran's post-revolutionary history. Few things are more dangerous than a dictatorship in panic. The deeper the fear, the more ruthlessly it strikes back. That summer, weakened by eight years of war with Iraq and determined to consolidate power, the Iranian regime launched a campaign of executions against political prisoners it deemed unrepentant. Thousands were killed, their bodies dumped into unmarked mass graves. My uncle Mohsen was among them. The 1988 massacre remains seared into the collective memory of Iranians, an open wound in the nation's conscience. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Fox News
18-07-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
Americans detained in Venezuela freed and returning home after prisoner exchange
Ten Americans are returning to the U.S. after being released from custody in Venezuela, the Secretary of State said on Friday. "Thanks to President [Donald] Trump's leadership and commitment to the American people, the United States welcomes home ten Americans who were detained in Venezuela," Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement. "Until today, more Americans were wrongfully held in Venezuela than any other country in the world. It is unacceptable that Venezuelan regime representatives arrested and jailed U.S. nationals under highly questionable circumstances and without proper due process. Every wrongfully detained American in Venezuela is now free and back in our homeland." Rubio also thanked the State Department, inter-agency partners, and El Salvador President Nayib Bukele. "Our commitment to the American people is clear: we will safeguard the well-being of U.S. nationals both at home and abroad and not rest until all Americans being held hostage or unjustly detained around the world are brought home," he added. He said the U.S. also welcomes the "release of Venezuelan political prisoners and detainees that were also released from Venezuelan prisons. The Trump Administration continues to support the restoration of democracy in Venezuela. The regime's use of unjust detention as a tool of political repression must end. We reiterate our call for the unconditional release of remaining unjustly and arbitrarily detained political prisoners and foreign nationals." The release is part of a prisoner swap in which Bukele agreed to release hundreds of Venezuelans being held in a maximum-security prison in Tecoluca, El Salvador, in return for Salvadoran prisoners being held in Venezuela. The U.S. sent the Venezuelans to El Salvador in March through the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to deport alleged Tren de Aragua members without going through immigration procedures. Many of the deportees' families and lawyers denied the gang connections. "Today, we have handed over all the Venezuelan nationals detained in our country, accused of being part of the criminal organization Tren de Aragua (TDA)," Bukele said. "Many of them face multiple charges of murder, robbery, rape, and other serious crimes." Bukele added that the "operation is the result of months of negotiations with a tyrannical regime that had long refused to release one of its most valuable bargaining chips: its hostages. However, thanks to the tireless efforts of many officials from both the United States and El Salvador, and above all, thanks to Almighty God, it was achieved. In this, as in other matters, I remind you: patience and trust." The Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs posted a photo of the hostages on social media along with the message: Ten Americans are are their way home from detention in Venezuela! Thanks to @POTUS @SecRubio @usembassyve @aboehler and many others for your support bringing Americans home." Christian Casteneda, whose brother Wilbert, a Navy SEAL, was arrested in a Caracas hotel room last year, said in a statement: "We have prayed for this day for almost a year. My brother is an innocent man who was used as a political pawn by the Maduro regime." Lucas Hunter, whose family said he was kidnapped by Venezuelan border guards in January, was also among the 10 Americans released. "We cannot wait to see him in person and help him recover from the ordeal," his younger sister Sophie Hunter said in a statement. This comes months after U.S. Air Force veteran Joseph St. Clair's was released from Venezuelan custody in May after being held there for around six months.
New York Times
15-07-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
Israel and Iran Usher In New Era of Psychological Warfare
In the hours before Israeli forces bombed Evin prison in Iran's capital on June 23, posts appeared on social media in Persian, foreshadowing the attack and urging Iranians to come free the prisoners. Moments after the bombs struck, a video appeared on X and Telegram, purporting to show a blast at an entrance to the prison, which is notorious for holding political prisoners. One post on X included a hashtag, in Persian: '#freeevin.' The attack on the prison was real, but the posts and video were not what they seemed. They were part of an Israeli ruse, according to researchers who tracked the effort. It was not the only trickery during the conflict. Over 12 days of attacks, Israel and Iran turned social media into a digital battlefield, using deception and falsehoods to try to sway the outcome even as they traded kinetic missile strikes that killed hundreds and roiled an already turbulent Middle East. The posts, researchers said, represented a greater intensity of information warfare, by beginning before the strikes, employing artificial intelligence and spreading widely so quickly. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Washington Post
30-06-2025
- Politics
- Washington Post
Israel's strike on Iran's Evin prison sparks fear for political prisoners
BEIRUT — Sayeh Seydal, a jailed Iranian dissident, narrowly escaped death when Israeli missiles struck Tehran's Evin Prison , where she was imprisoned. She had just stepped out of the prison's clinic, moments before it was destroyed in the blasts. The June 23 strikes on Iran's most notorious prison for political dissidents killed at least 71 people, including staff, soldiers, visiting family members and people living nearby, Iranian judiciary spokesman Asghar Jahangir said Sunday. In the ensuing chaos, authorities transferred Seydal and others to prisons outside of Tehran — overcrowded facilities, known for their harsh conditions.
South China Morning Post
29-06-2025
- Politics
- South China Morning Post
Iran says 71 killed in Israeli attack on Evin prison, officials suspicious of ceasefire
Dozens of staff members, two inmates and a bystander were among the casualties of Israel's attack last week on Tehran's Evin prison, a notorious facility where many political prisoners and dissidents have been held. The death toll from the strike was released on Sunday by Iran's judiciary and confirmed by human rights groups as the one-week mark of the ceasefire between Israel and Iran approaches, despite suspicions on both sides about whether the truce will hold. Judiciary spokesman Asghar Jahangir posted on the office's official Mizan news agency website that at least 71 people were killed on Monday, including staff, soldiers, prisoners and members of visiting families. While officials did not provide a breakdown of the casualty figures, the Washington-based Human Rights Activists in Iran said at least 35 were staff members and two were inmates. Others killed included a person walking in the prison vicinity and a woman who went to meet a judge about her imprisoned husband's case, the organisation said. The June 23 attack, the day before the ceasefire between Israel and Iran took hold, hit several prison buildings and prompted concerns from rights groups about inmates' safety. It remains unclear why Israel targeted the prison, but it came on a day when the Defence Ministry said it was attacking 'regime targets and government repression bodies in the heart of Tehran'.
