Iranian rioters raped in jail (NSFW)

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Sad and depressing: A leading Iranian politician announced that Tehran riot detainees were raped in government custody via open letter. The detainees are both male and female. According to former Speaker of Parliament Mehdi Karroubi:

“A number of detainees have said that some female detainees have been raped savagely,” Karroubi said in the letter to Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, an influential religious leader and former president.”Young boys held in detention have also been savagely raped,” he said, adding they were suffering from depression and serious physical harm after the alleged attacks.

In Iran, female political detainees were frequently raped while in custody both during the Shah’s regime and in the early years of the Islamic Republic. At least three detainees have died in custody – one of Iran’s press agencies claims they “died of viral illness and not as a result of beating.”

Following the public release of Karroubi’s allegations, Iranian authorities fired and arrested the director of Kahrizak prison. Here’s the official line from Iran’s state news agency:

Iran moves to punish the prison wardens who ordered unauthorized interrogation techniques at the infamous Kahrizak detention center in southern Tehran.Iranian Police Chief Esmail Ahmadi-Moqaddam said Sunday that the head of the Karhrizak prison –where opposition demonstrators had been allegedly subjected to extreme measures– has been dismissed and arrested.

Heh. “Extreme measures.” It would be funny if it was not so depressing. The article goes on to claim that there was a “sordid state of affairs” in Kahrizak where “interrogation techniques went too far.” Disgusting. According to the Associated Press:

A number of detainees have stated that some female detainees were so severely raped that their genitals were damaged. Others savagely raped young boys so that they suffer from depression and serious physical and mental damage, Karroubi said in a letter posted on his Web site.

Karroubi, unsurprisingly, is on Facebook. Meanwhile, CNN decided not to mention the rape allegations in their Kahrizak piece. Sad.