How to survive prison in Iran

As a student and political activist in Iran, Abbas Hakimzadeh was jailed three times between 2007 and 2010. He survived physical and psychological abuse, enduring torture for up to 15 hours a day.

Suspecting a fourth arrest was imminent, in 2010 Hakimzadeh fled across the border to Turkey. The Iranian authorities had confiscated his travel documents, and Hakimzadeh took the risk of being shot by border guards to avoid yet another stint in prison.

Still, the ordeal he faced over five years ago pales in comparison to what currently awaits activists and journalists who fall into the clutches of Iran’s justice system, he says. Since the unrests of 2009, the Islamic republic expanded its use of legal tools, including capital punishment, to silence dissidents.

“The stakes are much higher now,” says Hakimzadeh. “In my time, the price you paid for activism was prison. But since the Green Movement, this price has gone up.”