When Israel targeted the grounds and buildings of Evin Prison, nearly three thousand people were locked behind closed doors in its wards.
According to the Campaign for the Defense of Political and Civil Prisoners, prison authorities and security institutions have so far refrained from providing any information about the number of detainees who went missing or were killed during the Israeli attack on Evin Prison on Monday, June 23, 2025.
The full text of the letter is as follows:
We, the women of Evin, were transferred to Qarchak Varamin Prison on Tuesday morning under heavy security restrictions, and around three thousand men from Evin were also transferred to the Greater Tehran Prison. Although our current conditions are harsher than before the transfer, in solidarity with our comrades and brothers in Greater Tehran Prison, who have also been attacked and pressured simultaneously. We declare that the present situation will not deter us from our struggle. Because we know, “This is not a path where one reaches the destination without consequence.”
Since the Constitutional Revolution, through numerous wars, anti-people coups, massacres of defenseless civilians and political dissidents at the hands of authoritarian regimes over the past century, and many other historical ups and downs, the path of struggle has continued. Today, we find ourselves in Qarchak Prison, in conditions that over a thousand women with various charges have endured and continue to live through.
These are women from the depths of society, with silent sufferings carved into their eyes, sufferings that speak of injustices we have now stepped into resistance against.
These are women cast to the margins of society, their eyes bearing the silent imprint of suffering, suffering that speaks to the deep injustices we now stand in resistance against.
Castaways at the farthest corners of the world, invisible in the equations of life, absent from news reports and media waves, and ignored in human rights reports, no names, no voices, no traces of their pain are seen or heard.
What has stunned us in these past days is the stark truth of these women’s lives: women bent with age on short beds the size of graves, yearning for even the most basic hygiene and life necessities. Among grimy, mold-covered walls bearing the filth of years, many of them without any funds, are forced to give themselves to cellmates simply for daily cigarette money: for sexual exploitation. They submit to every form of humiliation just to fill their stomachs or access the minimum of what their hearts long for.
They work in the prison’s labor section, pushing food and garbage carts, cleaning rest areas and guards’ rooms, for hours on end, with no wages, in exchange for just a few extra minutes of phone time. In the prison workshop, they toil away at sewing and other tasks, hoping to earn a small pack of cigarettes by day’s end.
These women are usually kept apart from us political prisoners, unless as a form of punishment or judicial exile. Now, although we have been housed separately from them in Qarchak, their suffering is not detached from ours.
Alongside the tireless struggles of the people against dictatorship, and with clear goals and firm resolve, we will continue the path of resistance until tyranny in all its forms is overthrown. And we will stand with these forgotten women, cast out from the cycle of life, renewing our commitment to resist with greater determination than ever before.
To those whose voices rise in support of us and our difficult situation, we say this even louder: what has been imposed on us today is not greater than the years of suffering these women have endured. So, strive for the improvement of our conditions, regardless of our charges. Strive for the improvement of our conditions, those of us now in Qarchak and Greater Tehran Prisons, regardless of our gender. Know that those lost under the rubble of the attack and those rejected by the merciless machinery of life are more deserving than us.
May we be a link in the chain of Iran’s long struggle for equality and freedom, a struggle that has endured over a century of tyranny and exploitation and continues forward.
“We do not consider our suffering today greater than what has been imposed on the people of Iran.”
Golrokh Iraee, Reyhaneh Ansari, and Varisheh Moradi