Disturbing new accounts from Iranian women reveal a dramatic escalation in sexual violence within the country’s detention facilities, according to exclusive interviews conducted by The Media Line.
The reports indicate that sexual assault cases against imprisoned women, especially younger detainees, have surged dramatically in facilities operated by Iran’s Islamic government.
A young female detainee shared her harrowing experience, describing how she endured sexual assault during questioning sessions where large officers used police batons to commit abuse.
The escalating violence comes as Iran’s government has ramped up its crackdown on dissent. Meanwhile, authorities have stepped up execution rates, putting at least 15 opposition members to death publicly, though human rights organizations believe the actual count could be much higher when accounting for secret executions.
Kamelia, a recently freed protest participant from an Iranian city, recounted her traumatic ordeal to The Media Line. She described being violently taken from her residence during a nighttime operation by armed, masked individuals while her partner watched helplessly. Despite her objections, she faced sexual harassment while her partner suffered severe beatings for trying to intervene.
During her imprisonment, Kamelia spent two weeks confined in a cramped 20-square-meter cell alongside eight other women. Among her cellmates was a 16-year-old who had been shot in the face with pellet rounds by security personnel and arrested while injured. The teenager’s wounds received only basic bandaging with no attempt to extract the embedded pellets.
Following the initial detention period, Kamelia was moved to isolation where she faced her first interrogation by a male and female questioner who hurled verbal abuse, labeling her a prostitute and spy despite facing no formal accusations beyond protest participation. The interrogators demanded false admissions of connections to opposition movements and organizing demonstrations.
When Kamelia refused to cooperate, she says multiple large officers who appeared unstable attacked her in the interrogation chamber. They ripped her clothing, sexually assaulted her with a baton, violently groped her body, beat her severely, and threatened group sexual assault.
Her family’s pressure eventually secured her release through substantial bail payments. When she asked her attorney to pursue sexual assault charges, she was warned that filing such complaints might result in harsher sentencing. She now receives psychiatric treatment and strong antidepressant medications for severe psychological trauma.
In another shocking case, Ahmad Khodaei, a protester, recently attempted suicide after posting on Instagram that security personnel told him they had sexually violated his deceased wife’s body. His wife, Saleheh Akbari, worked as an operating room technician and was killed during protests in Ardabil. Khodaei said agents sent him messages claiming they had desecrated her corpse in the morgue and provided photographic evidence. He described this psychological torture as worse than the physical abuse he endured in custody, which resulted in broken ribs and kidney injuries.
According to witness accounts, security forces raided the couple’s home to arrest Khodaei after both had publicly offered medical help to wounded protesters. When Saleheh Akbari tried to protect her husband, she was fatally shot in the chest in front of her husband and child.
After his release, Khodaei became severely distressed upon receiving the disturbing messages and images, prompting his farewell post calling for justice. Government officials subsequently denied both his wife’s killing and his suicide attempt, claiming he was a fugitive and accusing him of spreading false information.
However, regional human rights advocates confirm that Saleheh Akbari was indeed killed by security forces in her home and that her husband was detained and later freed on bail.
In recent weeks, Iran’s Islamic government has accelerated executions of political opponents, with at least 15 people put to death publicly. Human rights organizations warn the true figure, including clandestine executions or deaths from denied medical treatment, may be substantially higher. Those executed include Mojahedin-e Khalq members and participants from the January uprising.
Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi faces serious life-threatening conditions among those at risk. After suffering a heart attack in Zanjan prison, she has been denied medication and treatment. On Tuesday, she marked her 54th birthday behind bars without outside contact, having already spent a decade of her life in various Islamic Republic prisons.
Following an attack by pro-monarchist supporters in Mashhad while she was speaking at a ceremony honoring the suspicious death of lawyer Khosro Alikordi, Mohammadi endured brutal assault by government security agents who arrested her along with several prominent female activists, including Sepideh Qolian, after beating them. Eyewitnesses report that individuals posing as Reza Pahlavi supporters and throwing stones at Mohammadi were actually cooperating with security agents to suppress and arrest ceremony attendees.
Nasim, a Tehran student activist, told The Media Line that while both monarchist and Islamic Republic supporters favor war, civilian repression has intensified since the conflict began.
Educational institutions, factories, commercial centers, and bazaars—which served as primary protest hubs in recent months—have been forced to close. Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Basij forces, carrying heavy weaponry, have been extensively deployed throughout city streets alongside various security units and police. The regime has also brought armed supporters into streets to prevent protesters from gathering in public areas.
Additionally, opposition arrests have increased dramatically, with dozens detained daily nationwide on various pretexts, including espionage or connections to Persian-language media overseas. Some are coerced into making fabricated confessions broadcast on state media to intimidate the public.
According to Nasim, if the January protests and strikes had continued their natural progression without external interference, the regime would not have found justification for the mass killings on January 8 and 9. Over time, sustained protests would have not only deepened and expanded but also caused many regime supporters to question their continued allegiance.
More than 100 days after what activists characterize as an unprecedented crackdown—where thousands were reportedly killed in just two days, with total casualties estimated as high as 33,000—the full extent of the violence continues emerging. Nineteen-year-old Noush Afarin Mohitian described in a video how she and her mother were shot after returning from a birthday celebration by security forces, leaving her wounded while her mother died from a gunshot to the heart. Shortly after posting the video, which gained significant social media attention, she apparently removed it from her page due to threats and pressure.
During the uprising, tens of thousands also suffered injuries. The Media Line previously revealed in an exclusive investigation that some wounded individuals were removed from hospitals by military and security forces while still alive, placed into body bags, and left to die.
Repression has also targeted minority groups, including religious communities. In recent weeks, many Baha’is have been arrested, including Shakila Ghasemi, who has been detained for over 11 weeks without legal representation.
Shaqayeq Ghasemi, her sister, told The Media Line: “My sister has insisted that she did not participate in the protests, and it remains unclear what charges have been brought against her.” She explains that her twin sister has been held in solitary confinement since arrest and was recently moved to the prison medical facility, but the family lacks precise information about her condition. During this period, they have been permitted only one visit, during which their mother realized that Shakila’s physical and psychological state was extremely serious.
Baha’is are considered an illegal minority in the Islamic Republic. They cannot attend universities, hold government positions, and face other limitations, despite being Iran’s largest religious minority. Many religious minorities departed Iran after the Islamic Republic’s establishment and emigrated abroad, including numerous Iranian Jews—once numbering around 100,000—who relocated to Israel or the United Kingdom.
Meanwhile, intensive drone and missile strikes on the Kurdistan Region and against Kurdish parties persist, resulting in several peshmerga casualties in recent days. Rada Fatehi, a human rights advocate, told The Media Line that several Kurdish political prisoners face execution risk.
She also reported that many political prisoners in both official and secret facilities nationwide have been denied regular meals, drinking water, medical treatment, prison store access, in-person visits, and basic items like soap and shampoo, or access to these necessities has been severely disrupted, endangering the lives of prisoners with chronic and serious medical conditions. Human rights advocates report that three Kurdish prisoners have received death sentences from a Mahabad court.
Azadeh Pourzand, Head of the State–Society Relations Unit at the Center for Middle East and Global Order, told The Media Line that Iran’s human rights situation has deteriorated further since the war began: “Rather than a sudden shift, what we’re seeing is a continuation of an already deteriorating trajectory. Even before the war, there were serious abuses—including the January 2026 massacre, a high number of executions, and widespread arrests.”
She continued, “What the war has done is intensify this pattern: it has strengthened the state’s propaganda apparatus, enabled further securitized charges and prosecutions, and taken place alongside internet shutdowns—altogether creating and sustaining an atmosphere of profound fear.”
Certain groups face particularly high execution risk, Pourzand explained: “Ethnic minorities—particularly Kurds and Baloch—have long accounted for a disproportionate share of executions in Iran, including on security and drug-related charges. Protesters have also faced execution in the past, but in the current war context, they appear increasingly vulnerable, with detainees from before the escalation now being systematically given death sentences and, in some cases, executed.”
The Human Rights Organization of Iran declared that opponent repression has intensified significantly following the war, with at least 3,646 people arrested and imprisoned in cities across Iran since the conflict began. However, the actual detainee number may be far higher, as internet shutdowns and severely restricted phone communication between inside and outside world greatly limit access to reliable information.
On Tuesday, US President Donald Trump, in a post also republished by the White House, called on Islamic Republic authorities to release eight women reportedly facing execution risk. One is Bita Hemmati, who allegedly received a death sentence on “enmity against God” (Moharebeh) charges alongside her husband and two other protesters.
Some human rights advocates report that other female protesters, including 18-year-old Melika Azizi, who was arrested after being beaten during January 8 protests in Rasht, also face potential death sentences on “enmity against God” charges for burning the Islamic Republic flag.
The judiciary immediately denied issuing death sentences for these eight women following President Trump’s request, claiming some had been released. However, sources familiar with political prisoner cases told The Media Line that the death sentence for Bita Hemmati—whose case includes charges of attacking regime agents alongside her husband and two others—is accurate.
On Tuesday, the Islamic regime executed Amirali Mirjafari on charges of setting fire to Qolhak Mosque in north Tehran during the January uprising. Reports indicate that summary courts—reportedly acting on orders from Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Eje’i, judiciary head—have issued dozens, possibly hundreds, of death sentences against protesters and regime opponents in recent weeks. Above all, growing concern exists for those whose death sentences have received final approval.
Currently, among female prisoners, three leftist detainees—labor activist Sharifeh Mohammadi, along with Pakhshan Azizi and Varisheh Moradi, who face accusations of links to Kurdish opposition parties and whose death sentences have been confirmed—are at risk of execution by the Islamic Republic.
