Suicide and Despair Plague Iran’s Prisons

The number of people arrested during the recent protests in provinces across Iran is still a subject of debate, with some news agencies putting the figure as high as 3,700. The families of many of those arrested have spoken to IranWire about their desperation to glean any information about the whereabouts of their loved ones, and many of them gathered daily outside Evin Prison in the hopes of getting information, especially while the protests were still going on.

On January 7 and January 9, there were also reports that at least two people detained recently had committed suicide in prison. One of them was 22-year-old Sina Ghanbari. There are conflicting reports over why he was arrested — some official Iranian media reports say he was picked up for drug offences, while others say he was arrested during the protests. In addition to Ghanbari's death, the prosecutor in Arak in the central province in Markazi said a protester had killed himself while being held in a police station. 

To cast some light on how desperate the situation can be for prisoners in Iranian jails, and why they might consider taking their own lives, we reproduce an article originally published in September 2016 here.

 

 

“I have no choice but to commit suicide,” said political prisoner Iraj Mohammadi in June 2016, after he was transferred from one prison to another and denied basic necessities, including desperately needed medical care. “For more than a month, he had been sleeping on the floor without blankets on the cold tiles,” an informed source told IranWire. “He also had a stroke and suffered from mental illness, but they will not give him his medicine.” Mohammadi has been kept in a ward for common thieves.

As far as we know, Mohammadi never acted on his threat. But inmates do end their lives in Iranian prisons. In November 2014, Greco-Roman wrestling champion Babak Ghorbani, who was in prison for shooting a man to death, killed himself in Kermanshah Prison by ingesting an aluminum phosphide caplet used for fumigation. His death brought media attention to the issue.

In August 2015, Ali Mohammadi, a prisoner convicted of espionage, attempted suicide inside the clinic of Urmia prison after he had been kept in solitary confinement for 15 consecutive months. According to the forensic doctor, Mohammadi had lost his mental balance.

Iranian prison officials rarely acknowledge suicides and attempted suicides. Even so, the names of several prisoners believed to have committed suicide have become public.

In January 2008, authorities at Sanandaj Detention Center reported that Kurdish student activist Ebrahim Lotfallahi had committed suicide just eight days after his arrest, although they refused to provide his family with any details.

In July 2013, another young Kurdish prisoner, Afshin Sohrabzadeh, attempted suicide to protest his exile to the southern city of Minab, where he faced “deplorable conditions.” He was sentenced to 25 years in prison. He reportedly attempted suicide by “swallowing broken light bulb glass” and “cutting his veins with a sharp object.”

 

Claustrophobia in Solitary Confinement

“When I was in solitary confinement at ward 240, they brought in an inmate who suffered from claustrophobia,” says Javad, a “security” prisoner at Evin Prison in Tehran. “The doctor had confirmed that he was claustrophobic. He would throw himself at the walls and the door of his cell. Everyone in Ward 240 could hear his screams. One night, there was a lot of commotion and it turned out that he had committed suicide. He had attempted suicide three times before that, but the guards had saved him.”

Even otherwise healthy inmates sometimes find themselves pushed to the edge. Maryam’s brother is one of these. He was arrested for unknown reasons while walking to his music class. “My mother searched for him for three full months before we found out that he was in Evin,” Maryam says. “Then we succeeded in getting him released on bail. My mother and my sister drove to Evin and brought him home. He was like a numb bag of flesh on the back seat. I do not know what happened to him. He had been an energetic and joyful young man who would climb walls but now he would not even speak. We were worried that he would never speak again. We decided to get him psychiatric treatment. The cost was going to be very high, but when we told the doctor that he had been in prison he agreed to treat him at one-third of his regular fee. Now he is fine and has returned to normal life, but he never talks about what happened to him in prison.”

Of course, depression and suicide affect prisoners even in more advanced prison systems. In April 2016, for example, the Guardian reported that murders and suicides in prisons in England and Wales had hit a 25-year high. “A total of 9,458 prisoners – one in 10 – are reported to have self-harmed in 2015, with a 25 per cent rise in reported incidents of self-harm to more than 32,000,” the article said.

In Iran, such figures are simply not available. What is known is that prison officials often act with impunity, disregarding prisoners’ human rights. Some guards beat and humiliate prisoners. Iran’s judicial process is also deeply flawed, leaving opportunities for abuse. Medical care is limited and is sometimes withheld. Political prisoners are often tortured ahead of trial to make them testify against themselves.

 

Seven Years for a Facebook Post

Hasan, an inmate at Ward 12 of Rajaei Shahr Prison, said that almost all prisoners are depressed. “I am lethargic,” he said. “I am thinking about suicide all the time. The worst thing is uncertainty, and I cannot imagine an end. I have been sentenced to seven years just for one Facebook posting. Among the inmates, there are those who have served their full sentences, but the guards and the officers have framed them.”

“Three months ago, one of the inmates got into a fight with a guard after the guard had insulted him many times,” Hasan said. "Right before the eyes of 60 prisoners the guard told him, 'I will not let you get out of here.' When the time came for him to be released, he was kept in prison on other trumped-up charges, and sentenced to two more years in prison.”

“When I look back,” Hasan said, “I see that just for expressing a political opinion, I cannot see my family for seven years. I have lost my job, and I cannot live an ordinary life. I have received a letter from the girl that I loved saying that she can no longer wait for me. And she is justified. I have no future whatsoever. When I do get out, I will be someone with a criminal record who has left part of himself behind these walls.”

Shahram Pourmansouri was 17 when he and members of his family were arrested in 2001 for attempting to hijack a plane. Since then, he has attempted suicide seven times. According to reports, he went on hunger strike in 2016, and it is likely he has done so since. “You should see what crimes are committed in the prison that is supposed to reform the prisoners,” said the inmate who saved Pourmansouri the last time he tried to kill himself. “Rarely can you find anyone here who has not seriously thought about committing suicide. Almost all of us have thought of suicide at least once, especially inmates who have been in prison a long time.”

 

Non-Specialist Help, One Hour a Month

Mahnaz is in prison for a financial breach of trust. She has attempted suicide several times. Last time, she spent a month in hospital after she cut open an artery in her wrist. “On one hand there is the stressful environment of the prison, and on the other, I worry about my children,” said Mahnaz. “My biggest concern is how my family gets by. My daughter is a college student and I am afraid that she will be humiliated because of financial difficulties. Even when I was present, we still had a thousand money problems.”

Does the prison have a psychiatrist or a psychologist, I asked her? “I have a counselor, but she just has a Master’s degree. When we get sick in prison, they give us the same pill for a headache that they would give us for appendicitis. You expect a psychiatrist? Depression is running amok here. Almost every day we hear news of a suicide in the other wards.”

Depression and attempted suicides are especially high in the ward for financial crimes, which can be compared to the “debtors’ prisons” that used to exist in the West. Most inmates feel they have been imprisoned for reasons beyond their control, or because of bad luck.

Mahnaz meets her counselor for one hour each month. “They tell everybody that we have a fully-equipped counseling center in prison, but it is not true,” she said. “If there is one, I have not seen it. I am forced to see the lady counselor once a month, but I feel that she is more in need of help than I am. I heard from another inmate that she has a Master’s degree in psychology, but that she has financial problems of her own, and has resigned herself to working for the prison for low pay. No specialist is going to work in prison for such a meager pay.”