New Details Emerge About Iranian Rapper’s Mock Execution in Prison

A fellow inmate of Iranian rapper Saman Yassin has given harrowing details of a mock execution by hanging that the artist was subjected to in Tehran’s Evin prison.

Yassin was a vocal critic of the Islamic Republic before his arrest 14 months ago and supported the anti-government protests that swept the country last year. In September, he was transferred from Evin to Ghezalhesar prison in Karaj, near the capital.

Ahmadreza Haeri, a political prisoner also incarcerated in Ghezalhesar prison, said in a letter dated November 20 that Yassin was one morning asked by prison officials in Evin whether he wanted to write his last wills. 

He was then taken to the gallows in the prison’s Ward 240 with his hands tied and his eyes blindfolded, Haeri said.

According to the inmate, one of the officers told a colleague to “bend the rope so that when he falls, his neck breaks and he does not suffer too much.”

Haeri said the mock execution was aimed at extracting forced “confessions” from the rapper.

Two days later, Yassin received news he had been handed the death penalty, a sentence that was later overturned by the Supreme Court.

In an audio message released in August, Yassin spoke about the "physical and mental tortures" inflicted upon him, including mock execution, beatings and his transfers in a morgue and a psychiatric hospital.

He said he was denied his most basic rights, including access to legal representation.