The state of Ahwazi Arab women prisoners is critically dire. Pregnant inmates have told harrowing stories of medical neglect and brutal mistreatment in Iranian jails that threatens the welfare of both them and their babies.
An infamous example of brutality against female prisoners was the Ahwazi political prisoner Fahimeh Esmaeli who was handcuffed while pregnant in an effort to degrade her and break her spirit. Fahimeh Esmaeli, like many Ahwazi women, has struggled against immense systematic discrimination and institutionalized violence, land confiscation and premeditated extermination against the Ahwazi Arabs.
She is a dedicated and well-educated activist who, after the unfair execution of her brave husband Ali Maturi, a political and social activist, has been imprisoned and condemned to 15 years of incarceration and exile to a prison outside Ahwaz. With threats against her life and that of her unborn child, she was coerced into making confessions against her husband to liquidate him like many Ahwazi prisoners. She was seven months pregnant when arrested, subjected to torture and has remained shackled.
Iranian agents have never shown any mercy or pardon for her as she continued to suffer from deliberate starvation and malnutrition, negligence and physical constraints, including handcuffs, waist chains and ankle manacles. These were a danger to both her and her unborn child. She gave birth to her Salma daughter without any medical aid in a filthy cell. While with her baby in the first days, she was shackled during her transfer (exile) to another prison outside Ahwaz, involving bus rides of up to 18 hours.
The women’s prisons in Ahwaz which are operating at maximum capacity have serious problems of filth and pollution. Lice and scabies symptoms appear on the skin of many women since they are allowed to shower once a month. The women in these terrifying prisons have been exposed to torture by various means in sensitive areas of the body, beating and rape during the investigation.
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