Is There Torture In Iran ? 5 Afghans Say Yes

Iran Death row Afghan nationals allege torture to confess in open letter

Pulling out prisoners' nails to get a coerced confession from them 

IRAN, 28 July 2017-- Five prisoners sentenced to death in Birjand Prison (Eastern Iran) in an open letter disclosed a series of brutal tortures in jail, including extraction of prisoners' nails.

    Centeral  Birjand Prison (Eastern Iran)

These five prisoners are Afghan citizens, who are married and have children. In their letter, they stipulate, 'We are five Afghan prisoners who worked in Tehran. We were going from Zabol (southwestern Iran) to Birjand with a Toyota when the driver started fighting with us. On the way, he stopped with an excuse of filling the tank with gas, but he came back with a bunch of police officers.'

One of the prisoners called Mohammed Mizan Zehi writes, 'As the police officer came, they hit me on the head and took us to the police station. We were severely tortured there. They extracted my right toes nails and charged us with carrying 140 kg of opium and having two Ak-47 guns.'

 The torturers, who brutally tortured this mentally impaired prisoner were guard officer

The letter reads, 'I swear to God that I only had a small amount of opium since I had severe pain in my left leg. Neither have we seen [large quantities of] opium nor guns, let alone carrying these materials.'

Mizan Zehi added, 'Due to brutal tortures we were forced to accept that the judicial authorities handle our cases. The advisers of the Second Branch of the Islamic Revolutionary Tribunal of Birjand unjustly sentenced us to death after five years.'

Shah Mohammed Zehi, Seraj Gavkhor, Ahmed Shah, Isa Zehi, and Eid Mohammed Zehi - Birjand Prison