Detained Women Journalists Moved to Qarchak Prison

Detained women journalists have been moved to Qarchak prison from Evin amid an intensified crackdown against media workers.  

“88 days after Niloofar Hamedi’s detention I was finally able to enter the Evin prosecutor’s office and talk to the prosecutor,” Hamedi’s husband Mohammad Hossein Ajorloo tweeted. “The only result was that they said Niloofar and Elaheh Mohammadi were transferred to Qarchak prison.”

In a separate interview with the Ensaf news website Ajorloo said, “Nobody is allowed to enter the prosecutor’s office at all. Every day several hundred people gather outside Evin and wait for something to happen. I, Mr. Rahmanian, the editor-in-chief of Shargh newspaper and Niloofar’s mother have written a letter to the head of the judiciary but we have not received any response and we are in complete uncertainty.”

Elaheh Mohammadi’s husband has also confirmed she has been moved to Qarchak.

Hamedi was arrested in a raid on the couple’s home in September by Ministry of Information agents, who ransacked the property and confiscated their laptops and mobile phones.

She was one of the first journalists to write about Mahsa Amini’s hospitalization after she fell into a coma at the hands of the morality patrol. The death of Amini in custody sparked the current wave of protests.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and the Ministry of Intelligence previously published a joint statement accusing Hamedi and Mohammadi of publishing the first photograph of Amini in her hospital bed and "directed news" of the funeral, burial and initial gatherings.