‘They beat me until I lost consciousness’: growing reports of brutal arrests, torture and deaths in Iran’s prisons

Writer Hamid Asefi was badly beaten during his arrest, leading to extensive bleeding on his brain. Photograph: Handout

Iranian writer Hamid Asefi wasn’t home on the afternoon of 5 March when armed intelligence agents stormed his Tehran apartment, breaking down the door with a sledgehammer and axe. After going unit to unit looking for him, they finally encountered him as he returned to the building.

One of the agents “drew his handgun, shouted at me to stop, and before I had time to respond, struck me forcefully on the back of the neck and spine with the butt of his weapon, dragging me into the apartment,” Asefi told the Guardian in a written interview.