Families fear for prisoners in Iran's jails after war with Israel

For Reza Khandan, an inmate in Tehran's notorious Evin prison, life has only worsened since the jail was hit by an Israeli airstrike on 23 June.

- Deepa Parent and William Christou, Amman

The night after, the 60-year-old human rights activist, who was arrested in 2024 for his support of the Woman, Life, Freedom movement, was moved to another jail in the south of the capital, where he has told family that conditions are hard to endure. "My father and others do not have beds and are forced to sleep on the floor. He once found six or seven bedbugs in his blanket when he woke up," said his Amsterdam-based daughter, Mehraveh Khandan, who described "horrific" sanitary conditions.

Families of political prisoners in Iran fear that detainees will bear the brunt of what activists say is a broader crackdown by Iranian authorities whose legitimacy was shaken by Israel's devastating 12-day campaign. An unknown number of prisoners were moved to other detention facilities in the aftermath of Israel's strike on Evin, which killed 71 people, some in the jail and some in its vicinity. The whereabouts of many surviving prisoners is unknown, but those who have been in contact with relatives say the new jails are even worse than Evin, which was notorious for the torture of political detainees.