Washington D.C. – Human Rights Watch, Aug. 14, 2025
Iranian authorities have ill-treated and forcibly disappeared Evin prison detainees who survived the June 23, 2025 attack by Israeli forces, Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Watch also found the Israeli strikes on the prison to be an apparent war crime.
Despite repeated calls and pleas by prisoners and their families, Iranian authorities failed to take any measures to protect detainees’ lives and safety prior to the attack. In the aftermath, the authorities have ill-treated survivors during transfers to other prisons, as well as when returning prisoners back to Evin, and held them in cruel and unsafe conditions. The treatment of prisoners in the attack’s aftermath bears all the hallmarks of Iranian authorities’ extensive use of repression, in particular during times of crisis.
“Iranian authorities’ response to traumatized Evin prisoners who had just witnessed fellow inmates killed and injured during the June 23 Israeli attack was to abuse them,” said Michael Page, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Iranian authorities have committed a catalogue of violations against prisoners in the aftermath of the attack, including beatings, insults, and threats during transfers, and holding prisoners in appalling conditions that have endangered their lives and health. Death-row inmates and those forcibly disappeared are now at heightened risk of torture or execution.”
Between June 24 and July 29, Human Rights Watch interviewed and spoke with 23 family members of prisoners, formerly detained human rights defenders, and other informed sources in connection with the June 23 Israeli attack on Evin prison and Iranian authorities’ subsequent treatment of prisoners. Researchers also reviewed accounts of prisoners’ treatment, obtained by other human rights groups and shared with Human Rights Watch, and publicly available accounts from prisoners and their families.
Human Rights Watch wrote to Iranian authorities seeking information about the fate and whereabouts of detainees, particularly those held in detention facilities run by the Ministry of Intelligence and the Intelligence Organization of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The authorities have not responded.
