Human Rights Watch alleged Thursday that an Israeli airstrike on a infamous Iranian jail was “an obvious battle crime,” whereas additionally accusing Tehran of harming and disappearing prisoners after the assault.
Israel struck Evin Jail in Tehran, one in all Iran’s most infamous detention services for political activists and dissidents, on June 23, throughout its 12-day battle with the Islamic Republic.
The strikes throughout visiting hours hit Evin Jail’s most important southern entrance, one other northern entrance, and different areas of the complicated, destroying buildings that had medical services and jail wards.
The Iranian authorities initially stated a minimum of 71 individuals have been killed in the course of the airstrike, amongst them civilians, together with inmates, visiting family, and jail workers. Iranian media later raised that quantity to 80.
It was unclear why Israel focused the jail, however it got here amid a wave of strikes on the penultimate day of the battle that hit key belongings and symbols of the Iranian regime in Tehran, together with services belonging to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and the “Destruction of Israel” countdown clock.
Human Rights Watch stated the assault was “unlawfully indiscriminate” and that there was no proof of an advance warning or a army goal earlier than hanging the jail complicated, which it estimates holds over 1,500 prisoners.
Evin Jail’s gate has been blown open—by the IDF.
The regime’s most feared image of repression—hit.
For 45 years, political prisoners and Iran’s biggest minds have been tortured, silenced, and murdered there.Right now, that gate fell.
The Islamic Republic is cracking.
Let it… pic.twitter.com/7ZKbug0P3N— Matthew Nouriel (@MatthewNouriel) June 23, 2025
“To make issues worse, Israeli forces put at grave danger prisoners who have been already victims of Iranian authorities’ brutal repression,” stated Michael Web page, the rights group’s deputy Center East director.
Human Rights Watch stated prisoners have been topic to “ill-treatment and violence” each as they have been being taken out of the jail following the assault and as they have been returned.
Calls to Iranian authorities weren’t instantly returned on Thursday, a public vacation within the nation. The Israeli army additionally didn’t reply to an instantaneous request for touch upon the Human Rights Watch studies.
After the assault, Iranian authorities evacuated and transferred the prisoners to 2 different services in Tehran province and stated on August 8 that they have been progressively returned. Iranian state media stated the prisoners have been transferred peacefully and with none battle.
However family and Human Rights Watch stated some political prisoners have been overwhelmed with batons and “electrical shock weapons” for resisting sporting handcuffs and protesting jail guards separating death-row inmates.
The group stated among the prisoners have disappeared, together with Swedish-Iranian physician Ahmadreza Djalali, who’s prone to execution. The rights group says Iran had refused to offer it any details about his whereabouts.
A flyer throughout a protest exterior the Iranian Embassy in Brussels for Ahmadreza Djalali, an Iranian tutorial detained in Tehran, February 13, 2017. (DIRK WAEM / Belga / AFP)
“Iranian authorities shouldn’t use Israel’s strikes on Evin jail as one other alternative to topic prisoners, together with those that ought to by no means have been in jail within the first place, to ill-treatment,” stated Web page.
The strike on Evin was a part of a sweeping assault Israel launched on Iran’s high army leaders, nuclear scientists, uranium enrichment websites, and ballistic missile program on June 13 with the said purpose of stopping the Islamic Republic from realizing its avowed plan to destroy the Jewish state.
Iran has constantly denied searching for to amass nuclear weapons. Nevertheless, it enriched uranium to ranges that haven’t any peaceable software, obstructed worldwide inspectors from checking its nuclear services, and expanded its ballistic missile capabilities. Israel stated Iran had not too long ago taken steps towards weaponization.
Iran retaliated to Israel’s strikes by launching over 500 ballistic missiles and round 1,100 drones at Israel. The assaults killed 31 individuals and wounded over 3,000 in Israel, based on well being officers and hospitals.
In all, there have been 36 missile impacts and one drone strike in populated areas, inflicting injury to 2,305 properties in 240 buildings, together with two universities and a hospital, and leaving over 13,000 Israelis displaced.
