Iran International
Prisoners in a security ward at Dastgerd Prison in Isfahan are beaten with cables and metal rods and held in overcrowded, windowless cells with poor ventilation, according to accounts provided to Iran International.
Informed sources described the section known as “Alef-Ta” as a place used for interrogations, holding prisoners before execution and, in some cases, applying additional pressure.
“Some prisoners put their faces close to the gap beneath the cell door so they can breathe,” one informed source said.
The ward holds some political prisoners alongside people accused of violent crimes and a number of clerics. Alireza Sepahi, a January protest detainee sentenced to death in the case known as the Alikhani case, has also been transferred there.
The Alikhani Square case stems from anti-government protests in Isfahan on January 8, during which authorities said four members of the security forces were killed.
Twelve protesters were sentenced to death, drawing concerns from rights groups and UN experts over due process and fair-trial standards. At least five had been executed by August, including Abolfazl Sepahi and Amirhossein Safari, who were publicly hanged in Alikhani Square on July 28.
Windowless cells
The section consists of rooms originally designed for solitary confinement, with each cell measuring about eight square meters.
The cells have no windows or adequate airflow and rely on a single ventilation fan that is sometimes switched off. Despite being designed for one person, several prisoners are sometimes held in the same cell, leaving insufficient room to sleep normally.
Prisoners receive two dirty blankets, while a shower and toilet without a separating door or wall occupy a significant portion of each cell. Using water further increases humidity inside the enclosed space.
Access to fresh air can be limited to about 15 minutes once a week. Prisoners are blindfolded and taken to the roof, where only the sky is visible.
Lights inside the cells remain on continuously. With no windows or clocks, prisoners can struggle to distinguish day from night. The central sewage system, which operates at around 6 a.m. and 6 p.m., can become one of the few indications of time.
Prisoners also have no access to phones, television, a prison shop or facilities for heating food. Sources said poor-quality food and the inability to reheat it have led to repeated cases of food poisoning.
'Cables and metal rods’
Prisoners can be removed from their cells for interrogation several times over a 24-hour period, sources said.
Sources described prisoners being beaten with cables and metal rods during interrogation and returning to their cells with injuries to their legs, mouths and teeth. Iran International also received accounts of interrogators pulling out prisoners’ fingernails.
Iran International reported on September 9, citing a judicial document, that 18 prisoners held at Dastgerd face charges connected to unrest and a fire in April that could carry the death penalty.
Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi received US feedback on Iran’s seven-day proposal during talks with Qatari mediators in Doha on Tuesday night, Reuters reported, citing an official briefed on the talks.
The main disagreement concerns the sequencing of the plan rather than its elements, the official said. The proposal outlines a seven-day process to build trust and return to an enhanced version of a memorandum of understanding reached by Iran and the United States in June.
Araghchi presented the US proposal at Wednesday’s cabinet meeting and briefed ministers on his trip to New York, including Iran’s conditions for reopening the Strait of Hormuz, government spokesperson said.
US President Donald Trump, meanwhile, said Iran would eventually “give up,” but suggested that point had not yet been reached.
Tanker struck in Strait of Hormuz
The diplomatic exchanges came with shipping risks persisting in the waterway at the center of the negotiations.
A tanker heading into the Strait of Hormuz was struck by an unknown projectile, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations said, citing a verified source. Authorities were investigating the strike.
Separately, the Revolutionary Guards described near-daily confrontations with vessels in the strait. Guards spokesman Hossein Mohebi said Iranian forces were targeting ships every 24 hours but had received no US response for some time.
The disruption has also affected neighboring Iraq. Parliament speaker Haibat al-Halbousi said Iran had given Iraqi tankers no exemption from restrictions on navigation through Hormuz.
Iran expands military and civilian preparations
Beyond the strait, Iranian officials described efforts to strengthen the country’s military capabilities and prepare civilian infrastructure for further conflict.
Iran is rapidly expanding its missile, drone and air defense capabilities, deputy Revolutionary Guards commander Mostafa Izadi said.
“We are present in the Strait of Hormuz with strength. We are rapidly expanding our missile, drone and air defense capabilities,” Izadi said.
Iran will also hold drills covering schools, hospitals, banks, mobile phone operators, airports, ports, bridges, roads and aviation networks to prepare civilian infrastructure for wartime threats, Passive Defense Organization chief Gholamreza Jalali said.
Jalali said Iran had prepared for possible attacks on the Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan nuclear facilities before the war and conducted drills for such scenarios.
Two January protesters executed
Away from the military confrontation and negotiations, Iran carried out two more executions stemming from the January protests.
Ali Hemmati and Majid Nikandish were executed over demonstrations in Mashhad, with the judiciary accusing them of involvement in the deaths of four security personnel.
The judiciary said the two participated in protests in the city’s Tabarsi district on January 8 and accused them of attacking security personnel, setting buildings on fire and damaging public property.
Sources previously told Iran International that Nikandish was tortured and forced to confess after his arrest and transfer to Vakilabad Prison.
Wednesday thus brought movement in indirect diplomacy with Washington without an end to confrontations in Hormuz, while Iranian authorities prepared for further conflict and continued executions stemming from January’s protests.
Sepahi, detained over protests in January and sentenced to death in Isfahan, now has his case before the sentence enforcement office, raising concerns over his execution.
“I personally saw the four places where the pellets had hit his legs,” the former prisoner told Iran International, adding that Sepahi told him his initial recovery took about two months.
Held in a security ward at Dastgerd Prison in Isfahan, Sepahi suffered a stroke on July 28, when two other prisoners were executed, including his cousin Abolfazl Sepahi. He was hospitalized before being returned to prison.
He was sentenced to death in the Alikhani Square case, a mass prosecution of protesters accused of involvement in unrest in Isfahan in which the Islamic Republic says four security personnel were killed.
Shot during arrest
Security forces arrested Sepahi at home following the January protests, ordering his family onto the floor before going upstairs to his room.
One officer restrained him before another said, “Hold him. I want to shoot him.”
The officers shot him in both lower legs, with two more pellets striking his thighs as he was taken away. One remained lodged in his thigh bone and required surgery.
After two days in hospital, he was transferred to another detention facility. His mother, brother and teenage sister were also detained.
Torture during interrogation
Sepahi spent about 26 days undergoing interrogation and torture at the facility, according to the former prisoner.
His mother was at times brought into an adjoining room so she could hear or witness the torture. Interrogators struck him in the face and hit the wounds on his legs with a hose until they began bleeding again.
“I will sign whatever you tell me to,” Sepahi shouted during the torture, based on the account.
Civil rights activist Mehdi Mahmoudian said on September 12 that Sepahi and several other defendants in the case were tortured in detention.
Several defendants told the court they had faced torture, sexual assault and threats of rape to extract statements against one another, Mahmoudian said, adding that a significant part of the case and resulting sentences rested on those statements.
Statements challenged in court
Sepahi told the judge during his trial that security forces had shot him during his arrest, his former cellmate said.
When the judge suggested the shots might have been fired as he tried to escape, Sepahi responded: “What escape? They shot me inside my own room.”
Other defendants who had previously made statements against him also told the court that their accounts had been extracted under torture.
Some were beaten and subjected to mock executions after returning from court and forced to write new statements against Sepahi and other defendants.
Sepahi’s mother, Somayeh, is serving a five-year sentence at Dowlatabad Prison on charges including “assembly and collusion,” “acting against national security” and “rebellion.”
The accounts from Dastgerd Prison in the central city of Isfahan describe crowded wards, poor sanitation and severe obstacles to treatment, with several people familiar with conditions there describing the spread of meningitis and other infections.
“Meningitis and colds are rampant in the prison, and there are no pills or medicine,” a former prisoner told Iran International.
Around 10,000 people are being held at Dastgerd, compared with a standard capacity of about 4,000 to 5,000, according to information.
Food shortages compound overcrowding
Nutrition is so poor that many prisoners have become physically weak and more vulnerable to illness.
Breakfast is not distributed on some days, and lunch and dinner are rationed. Food can also be difficult to obtain from the prison shop, even as cigarettes remain consistently available and various drugs are easily accessible inside.
Some wards hold between 1,300 and 1,500 prisoners, another person familiar with conditions at Dastgerd said. The combination of overcrowding and inadequate sanitation has helped diseases spread.
Prisoners, particularly political ones, in some cases deprived of phone calls, treatment, medicine, adequate food, sanitation, correspondence and some judicial rights.
Iran International reported on July 21 that prisoners must register to visit the medical center. In rooms housing around 40 people, only two are allowed to seek medical attention each week.
Meningitis spreads as prisoner deaths mount
Several accounts received in recent months point to the spread of meningitis at Dastgerd. Iran International previously reported that the disease had reached several wards and that a number of prisoners were transferred to hospital.
Two prisoners had meningitis when one former inmate arrived at Dastgerd. One suffered a seizure in the admissions section and died, while the other died after being transferred to hospital.
The former inmate said prisoners had in previous years received meningitis and tetanus vaccines upon arrival, but the vaccinations were no longer being administered during the person's recent detention.
More than 70 prisoners have died from illnesses over roughly the past five months, according to another person familiar with conditions at the prison. At least 15 of those who had died by September 21 were from a single ward.
Prisoners suspected of having meningitis have in some cases been sent to hospitals for spinal fluid testing. Some were returned to Dastgerd before completing treatment and recovering.
The prison is also infested with bedbugs and other pests, according to accounts. Recent Iran International coverage documented bedbugs, fleas and ticks alongside increasing skin conditions and infections in the wards.
Blankets and bedding are heavily contaminated, one former prisoner said, with some inmates developing serious eye infections that leave them unable to open their eyes in the morning.
The person needed nearly two months of treatment after being released on bail, including regular injections and intravenous fluids during the first two weeks.
Fever, chills, body aches and infections of the lungs, throat, eyes and ears were widespread. Some prisoners contracted several illnesses at once, leaving them severely weakened.
Medicine shortages restrict treatment
Severe medicine shortages have compounded the health problems, while political prisoners can face particular difficulties gaining access to the prison clinic.
Denial of treatment has in some cases been used to exert pressure on political prisoners, according to one former inmate.
Prison authorities told inmates that the clinic had burned down, that medicine was unavailable and that there was no budget to buy supplies.
One prisoner offered to deposit 500 million rials into a prison account to pay for medicine. The offer was accepted, but most of the supplies subsequently purchased were acetaminophen and basic cold remedies, with insufficient antibiotics available for serious infections.
Families have also tried to bring necessary medication into the prison, only for authorities in some cases to refuse delivery or confiscate part of the medicine during inspections.
Sedatives, sleeping pills and drugs, by contrast, are widely available among prisoners, according to the former inmate.
