September 15, 2023
The former head of Tehran’s Evin Prison says women sentenced to hang in the 1980s were often raped as a way to prevent them from going to paradise. Addressing an event on the Clubhouse online platform, Hussein Mortazavi-Zanjani, who was warden of Evin in 1987-88, said virgin female prisoners were coerced into marrying guards before their execution. This was based on the belief that women dying as virgins would go straight to paradise.