Detainees in Iran’s prisons are being subjected to beatings, rape and psychological abuse, according to testimonies that lay bare the lengths the Islamic Republic will go to crush dissent.

Despite the regime’s long-standing reputation for brutality, accounts of sexual violence and intimidation reveal a particularly disturbing pattern of abuse.

In a harrowing account to The Australian, a woman identified as Mina, a pseudonym, described her experience inside one of Iran’s notorious prisons.

‘They repeatedly struck my head with a Koran so hard that my nose began to bleed. The interrogator also touched my body under my clothes while using disgusting sexual language, and repeatedly asked which newspaper editors I had slept with.’

She added: ‘He told me, "I will bring your 12-year-old son here and make him rape you. Then you will confess on television".’

Such accounts are not isolated, with a report by Amnesty International last month finding that thousands of Iranians are at risk of sexual violence, with children as young as 14 among those assaulted by IRGC-linked forces during the January protests.

Evidence suggests this pattern stretches back decades. 

Researcher and former political prisoner Iraj Mesdaghi has documented abuses from the 1980s, including testimony from a 14-year-old boy tortured by Mohammad Mehrayin, known as the ‘Butcher of Evin’. 

‘In 1982, they took me to the third floor of the Revolutionary Prosecutor’s Office in Tehran and sat me blindfolded outside Mehrayin’s office. From inside the room, I could hear the horrifying screams of a woman. After some time, Mehrayin took me into the room; a naked girl lay on the floor, motionless. As he was leaving the room, he ordered me to rape her.

‘When he came back and saw that I had done nothing, he slapped me and ordered the girl to be taken away. Then he tied my hands and feet to the table and raped me. Then he said: "Now you are ready for a TV interview".'

More recent cases point to the continuation of these practices. In January 2026, two nurses from Tehran’s Rajaei Cardiovascular, Medical and Research Centre were gang-raped and tortured by security agents after treating wounded protesters.

The assaults were so severe that one nurse required the removal of part of her intestine and may also lose her uterus, leaving her dependent on a colostomy bag.

She was reportedly forced to sign a document stating she had married one of her attackers, while her family paid a large sum to secure her release.

She also signed a statement blaming her abuse on ‘rioters'. Another victim, aged 33, was left so traumatised that she begged surgeons to let her die and is now restrained in hospital under IRGC supervision.

It follows a long pattern of sexual intimidation used by IRGC enforcers to strike fear into protesters.

Amnesty has reported that girls as young as 12 have been raped in an effort to inflict lasting physical and psychological damage.

UN investigators have likewise found that Iranian authorities deploy sexual violence alongside torture, arbitrary arrests, killings and forced confessions.

Testimonies from former prisoners suggest little has changed over the past few decades.

Speaking to the Daily Mail, Shabnam Madadzadeh, who spent five years in the regime's notorious detention centres over a decade ago described hearing the screams of women being raped and tortured.

'You hear people screaming, crying, begging. Sometimes you imagine the voices are your family members. You think maybe it is your brother or your sister. They want you to hear it and they want you to break,' she said.

Madadzadeh was also threatened with rape, with guards telling her they could 'do anything' and nobody would hear her screams.

In her memoir, former prisoner Mehri Hajinejad described the routine brutality faced by women in the 1980s.

‘When we arrived [for interrogation], there were no questions at all. The interrogator simply said I had to receive 60 lashes. Two metal beds were pushed together, and I, along with fifteen other women, was made to lie on them. Then he delivered the sixty lashes to the feet of all of us as if that day he was too tired to whip each prisoner separately, so for his own convenience he flogged us all together.'

Monireh Baradaran, who spent a decade in prison from 1981 to 1991, recalled being flogged while her chador slipped from her head.

She said her interrogator shouted at her for exposing her hair, in violation of Islamic laws imposed after the 1979 revolution.

‘I remember that I passed out,’ she said, ‘When I regained consciousness, the first thing I heard was the interrogator telling me: “You are shameless! Cover yourself up”.’

In 2011, smuggled letters written by Iranian prisoners alleged that prison guards were giving criminals condoms and encouraging them to rape young opposition activists detained in Iran's jail system.

'During exercise periods, the strong ask for sex without any consideration. Criminals are repeatedly seen with condoms in hand, hunting for their victims,' an unnamed family member told opposition website Jaras at the time.

'If the inmate is not powerful enough or guards would not take care of him, he will be certainly raped. Prison guards ignore those who are seen with condoms simply because they were given out to them by the guards at first place,' the family member said.

And in more recent years, prisoners have continued to report sexual harassment and psychological torture.

Ecologist Niloufar Bayani wrote to authorities detailing 1,200 hours of interrogation during which she said she was threatened with rape and death, forced to imitate animal sounds and coerced into participating in degrading sexual acts, according to RadioLiberty.

The use of sexual violence intensified during the 2022 anti-government protests, which erupted after the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody.

Amnesty documented testimonies from at least 45 survivors, including men, women and children, who reported rape, gang rape and other forms of sexual violence.

The organisation stated that ‘Iran’s intelligence and security forces have been committing horrific acts of torture, including beatings, flogging, electric shocks, rape and other sexual violence against child protestors as young as 12 to quell their involvement in nationwide protests.’

One victim, Farzad, said he was gang-raped in a police van, recounting: ‘Plainclothes agents made us face the walls of the vehicle and gave electric shocks to our legs. They tortured me through beatings… resulting in my nose and teeth being broken.

‘They pulled down my trousers and raped me. I was throwing up a lot.’

Maryam, who was assaulted in a Revolutionary Guard detention centre, said her attackers mocked her, telling her: 'You are all addicted to penis, so we showed you a good time. Isn’t ‎this what you seek from liberation?'

IranWire reported the case of Afsaneh, a 22-year-old who was sent to a psychiatric hospital following interrogation in 2022, returned to Urmia Prison and later took her own life.

Upon arrival at the prison, she reportedly told fellow inmates: ‘They hit me a lot. They raped me many times.’

Former prisoner Fatemeh Davand said: ‘At least eight young women, including a 17-year-old girl, said that during their initial interrogation they were raped by members of the Revolutionary Guards,’ The Australian reports.

Saeedeh Fathi, detained in Evin prison during the 2022 uprising, described the conditions in an account for The New Humanitarian.

‘I was dragged from my home and thrown into a dark vehicle with no idea where I was headed. When the car stopped, we were at the gates of Evin. I was blindfolded and disoriented, but through the tinted windows, I caught glimpses: mothers crying, pleading, demanding to know if their children were alive.’

She added: '[There were] nine women in a two-by-four-metre room. No windows. No darkness. The lights were never turned off. We had to sleep on the floor. We had to ring a bell and wait to be blindfolded just to use the toilet. We didn’t know if it was day or night. It was so inhumane.'

Narges Mohammadi, was imprisoned in Evin after the morality police detained her for wearing her hijab 'improperly' in 2022.

She told the BBC via a letter from prison that her and other inmates had been subjected to torture in custody.

Mohammed described how one well-known activist had her hands and legs tied to a hook above her head in the vehicle taking her to prison - and was then sexually assaulted by security officers, leaving her bruised and scarred.

In 2022, a chilling rumour spread among the public: parents were warned to give daughters contraceptive pills before attending protests. The implication was clear that they could face rape in detention.

Speaking in 2023, Diana Eltahawy of Amnesty International said Iran’s ‘violence against children exposes deliberate strategy to crush the vibrant spirit of the country’s youth and stop them from demanding freedom and human rights.’

Amnesty said it had gathered extensive testimony from victims and their families, detailing widespread abuse.

One report noted: ‘A former detainee told Amnesty that, in one province, Basij agents forced several boys to stand with their legs apart in a line alongside adult detainees and administered electric shocks to their genital area with stun guns.’

A mother recounted how her son was raped with a hosepipe while in custody. Other methods included floggings, electric shocks and holding children’s heads under water.

One boy said: ‘They gave us electric shocks, hit me in my face with the back of a gun, gave electric shocks to my back and beat me on my feet, back and hands with batons.

‘They threatened that if we told anyone, they would [detain us again], do even worse and deliver our corpses to our families.’

The organisation concluded that sexual violence is being used systematically against detainees to break their spirit, humiliate them and extract confessions. 

In March 2024, a separate report from the UN’s Independent Fact-Finding Mission confirmed instances of gang rape and forced nudity inflicted on those arrested during the 2022 protests.

In October 2024, 22 female political and ideological prisoners in Tehran’s Evin Prison released an open letter demanding the end to sexual harassment during body searches.