Prison and prisoners in Iran may have never truly had laws or rights; there have been years when conditions were relatively better and the most basic rules were observed, and there have been dark years when individuals like Lajevardi and Dr. Ahmadi held dominion over the life and death of prisoners and their most fundamental rights. The attack by the United States and Israel on Iran has further clouded the already dark conditions of the Islamic Republic’s prisons for inmates.

If any معیار or standard could be set for comparison, Iran’s prisons would likely rank among the worst in the world. Even in the absence of war, prisoners—regardless of their category—have no rights within Iran’s judicial system; yet in wartime, this multi-layered injustice is imposed on them even more severely. Some of these conditions are outlined below to provide a clearer understanding of the situation.

Communications: A Perpetual Hostage

In Iran’s prisons, in general wards, contact with the outside world requires payment—and at a very high cost. These communications are cut off under any pretext, such as a protest inside the prison, problems outside, or the emergence of social unrest. In reality, even after receiving a final sentence and passing through the so-called investigation phase—when a prisoner should have the unquestionable right to regular contact with the outside world—their communication beyond prison walls still depends on government permission.

For prisoners under interrogation and in the investigation phase, this communication is no longer a right but a privilege. Interrogators take this privilege hostage to extract cooperation, and sometimes families of detainees remain unaware of their loved one’s whereabouts or fate for weeks. Notably, in my own experience in this regard, in 2003 (1382), after my arrest, the Intelligence Organization of the IRGC denied both my detention and my presence in Evin Prison for a full week. Only after I went on a hunger strike and a communication strike did they allow me a brief phone call, conducted under direct surveillance by a monitoring officer.

In wartime conditions, these two groups of prisoners face even more complicated circumstances. The first group, those in general wards, may be able to obtain information about the health and situation of their families if the ward phones are operational and they possess sufficiently charged phone cards. However, this is highly temporary, as phone cards are not listed among the essential goods of the Prisons Organization. In wartime—when prison supply chains will face severe shortages—the price of such cards inside prison will skyrocket and soon become entirely unavailable.

Prisoners in security wards will have almost no right to communication during wartime. Beyond the fact that their basic rights are already stripped away under the pretext of interrogation, permission for phone calls in these wards is granted at the discretion of the interrogator or, in some cases, the case prosecutor. In wartime conditions—especially of the kind Iran is currently experiencing—lack of safe workplaces, heightened security pressure across society, and the destruction of key judicial buildings make it unlikely that anyone could even access an interrogator to request a phone call. A greater danger lies in the intense emotional pressure prisoners face to learn about their families’ safety; under such strain, they may agree to any confession simply to gain the minimal right of a phone call, with severe consequences.

Food Security

The quality of prison food has long been the subject of scrutiny. In the 2000s, at least once in Evin Prison, political prisoners managed to prove—by weighing the amount of meat in prison meals—that the quality of food was even lower than what was stipulated in the prison’s own regulations. This discrepancy was due to corruption among prison officials and within the prison supply chain.

In wartime conditions, with various infrastructures being targeted, food storage facilities will quickly be depleted, and even kiosks selling food inside prisons will cease to function. Meanwhile, families outside—grappling with the insecurity of war—will no longer have the same ability to provide financial support to prisoners, and disruptions in the banking system will further exacerbate the problem. Such a situation, in the medium term, significantly increases the risk of hunger and life-threatening conditions in overcrowded prisons.

If, to these factors, we add what the author describes as Israel’s lawless and unethical war against Iran, then alarming scenarios—such as the targeting of a prison food warehouse in Tehran—evoke the prospect of a major catastrophe.

Physical Security

International wartime protocols are designed such that, during war, prisoners should be classified based on their level of risk to society and given the opportunity to evacuate and take shelter in safe locations. Preventing civilians from fleeing war zones is considered the use of human shields and constitutes a war crime. According to these regulations, even dangerous prisoners or those with security risks must be relocated by prison authorities (the Prisons Organization or the judiciary) away from primary danger zones and held in facilities located in areas facing minimal wartime threats.

The Islamic Republic of Iran observes none of these principles. This is partly because it scarcely recognizes prisoners’ right to life, and partly due to the lack of sufficient facilities and infrastructure to properly house inmates. Iran’s prisons—almost all of them—are filled several times beyond their nominal capacity, and even under normal conditions, life inside them resembles wartime circumstances.

On the other side, Israel, under media pretexts such as “rescuing political prisoners,” has bombed prisons, killing and injuring individuals who have little more than a few meters’ chance of escape. In the first wave of Israel’s attacks on Iran, at least two prisons in Tehran Province were targeted, and an unspecified number of prisoners were injured, yet no political prisoners managed to escape.

Conclusion

Overall, prisoners’ rights during wartime are not less than those of other citizens; in some respects, they may even be greater, since their right to decision-making and freedom of movement has already been taken from them by the state. Enumerating all these rights lies beyond the scope of this text, but the most distressing aspect of the current situation is that not only does the Islamic Republic fail to value the lives of its prisoners even to the extent of Nazi Germany, but the actions of the opposing side—the United States and Israel—are also being justified in this context.