Scattered around a sad, walled-in garden, with a few dusty and thirsty trees, broken pieces of rudimentary equipment for physical exercise lie around although no one is in any mood to exercise or body building here. The air in Iran’s Tehran is so polluted these days that it is hard to breathe without a face mask. Over the past few weeks, Evin has been receiving new residents at all hours, day and night. And, with the resulting shortage of space, the terrified new arrivals have to sleep in the corridors. In the sad, walled-in garden of Evin’s Ward 935, the 200 prisoners shuffle around – for two hours a day – to expose their eyes to a bit of natural light…Until just 35 years ago, what is now Evin prison was a beautiful garden built by a former prime minister, who was using it to breed rabbits. But, then, the garden was handed over – on the Shah’s orders – to SAVAK,..In just the past month alone, several thousand protestors have been detained, joining the 3,000 prisoners who were already in Evin….Among the thousands of people who have been arrested by the security forces and Ahmadinejad’s supporters, there is a group of about one hundred, who have a special status. Their crime is that they are journalists. The government is angry that reporters filmed the peaceful protests and the violent way in which they were suppressed; thereby allowing the world to learn about the fate of “a few bits of dirt and dust” in Iran….Freedom of expression is a garden,… >>>
