As Iranian students call for demonstrations on Sunday as a sign of solidarity with jailed student leader Majid Tavakoli, the blogosphere is buzzing over another imprisoned figure who has written an incendiary letter exposing the sordid details of sexual assaults against political prisoners and others.
Journalist Mehdi Mahmoudian, serving a five-year prison sentence in Rejaie Shahr prison, wrote a September 2010 letter to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The letter has just been published on Kaleme, a website close to Mir Hossein Mousavi, the man who challenged President Mahmoud Ahmadinejadin the last elections.
Mahmoudian, a member of the Society for the Defense of Prisoners’ Rights, which advocates “democratic interpretations of Islam,” says it is his religious duty to alert Khamenei’s attention to the abuses taking place in prison. Most shockingly, he writes in great detail about men being raped in the prison.
“Throughout the different quarters of Rajaei Shahr prison, sodomy has become a commonplace routine occurrence. And it seems that to … >>>
