Kahrizak detention center

Kahrizak Detention Center (in Persian: بازداشتگاه کهریزک) is a detainment facility operated by the Judicial system of Iran in southern Tehran.

Authorities first made plans for the Kahrizak detention center in 2001. The center's cells, located underground, were apparently built without free access to fresh air and toilet facilities. With the appointment of Ahmad-Reza Radan to the post of Tehran police chief, the center became a key site for carrying out the "Public Security Plan" targeting drug addicts and so-called "thugs and louts" endangering public morality.

Reports of inhumane treatment of the prisoners at Kahrizak were released, with some comparing the conditions there unfavorably to even the notorious political ward 209 of Evin prison. Opposition groups have published unverified reports of human rights abuses and as many as 6,000 deaths inside the prison during the years 2007 and 2008.

Several thousand civilians and activists were arrested after the disputed presidential election in 2009. The head of the national security forces, Esmail Ahmadi-Moghaddam, stated in an interview with state television on August 5, 2009 that only the most dangerous offenders involved in the election protests were to be delivered to the Kahrizak center, which has a 50 prisoner capacity. The rest were to be taken to Evin prison. Tehran riot police and Basij members used other official and unofficial sites to detain suspects charged with endangering national security and public safety during the protests, including the Level -4 detention center in the Interior Ministry building. Ahmadi-Moghaddam further admitted in his television interview that many of the 140 prisoners he claimed to be housed at Kahrizak were low priority suspects. Mohsen Ruholamini, the son of a conservative politician who had supported pragmatic presidential candidate Mohsen Rezaei, was among the Kahrizak prisoners.

On August 9, 2009, in a letter to the Chairman of the Expediency Discernment Council of Iran, Mehdi Karroubi demanded investigation of Iranian prisons for possible tortures and in particular sexual harassment of men and women. On August 19, he wrote to parliament speaker Ali Larijani, asking to meet with him, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, judiciary chief Ayatollah Sadeq Larijani, former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and the state prosecutor to "personally present my documents and evidence over the cases of sexual abuse in some prisons specially Kahrizak."

...
Wikipedia