Letter of political prisoner Saleh Kohandel from Rajayi Shahr (Gohardasht) Prison: Today, 250 people have to sleep in 100 cubic meters of space and hundreds of prisoners are forced to sleep compressed next to each other on their sides and sometimes even sleep on top of each other. About 40 to 50 people are brought to this prison every day. The new arrivals are left in prison without the minimum necessary items and it only takes a few minutes for them to realize that in order to escape the beatings and abuse, they have to become blind, deaf and mute and to give in to the hell like conditions of prison. If they have someone on the outside to at least transfer 250,000 tomans a week to their account, they will be able to buy narcotics or have a place to sleep but otherwise, they have to give in to the derogatory conditions and it does not take long for them to either commit suicide or cut their wrists as a result of the pressure. Or they go mad and sit around in the prison yard completely nude. Every once in a while a young handsome new arrival is hunted down by other prisoners and is group raped on the first or second night. Afterwards he pounds himself to the walls in a crazed fashion. You barely find anyone who is safe from the lice and groups of people can be seen sitting under the sun in the yard looking for lice in their underwear… Only one overflowing bathroom exists for hundreds of people… There are old men who stink of urine and excrement from meters away and mentally ill young men who urinate on each other at night or go to the bathroom anywhere they want, whether it is in their own pants, the area where they sleep, or the praying hall. This place is filled with young and old men who have lost hope in everything and it is as if they have surrendered to death and there is no one to save them from torments of life… I have nothing to say to the regime and its mercenaries whose sole responsibility is to be at animosity with the people of Iran and other countries, but I have a few words with human rights organizations. The world that you human rights activists see is completely different from the world of Rajayi Shahr Prison. You talk of human rights, but here prisoners are even deprived of animal rights. You talk about sanitary facilities but the word ‘sanitation’ is like a dream for a prisoner and is so unheard of that prisoners easily transmit the most dangerous diseases to each other. You talk of the lack of fruits and vegetables in prisoners’ diets while prisoners here have to look in the trash for a piece of bread… Your idea of the real pain of prison is much smaller than what I see in prison and if someone has experienced Rajayi Shahr Prison, they would protest and ask me why I was not able to convey the condition of this prison in these few sentences. I ask their forgiveness beforehand because they are right.
Saleh Kohandel is in prison because of connection to PMOI organization!