Former hostage Louis Arnaud discusses life in Evin prison – and his fears for Iran’s future

Iranian authorities arrested Louis Arnaud in 2022, accusing him of “propaganda” and threatening state security by taking part in protests. His family denied the charges, saying he “kept his distance” from public demonstrations while visiting Iran as a tourist. 

His arrest came amid a crackdown on the "Women, Life, Freedom" movement – widespread anti-government protests sparked by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who was arrested for  wearing a hijab incorrectly and died in police custody.

Arnaud spent nearly two years in Evin prison, where many of the regime’s opponents are incarcerated – including political prisoners, academics and activists – as well as foreign nationals accused of espionage or distributing propaganda.

The prison has, for decades, been a symbol of brutal repression, with detainees facing routine physical and psychological torture and the constant threat of summary execution or forced disappearance. 

US and Israeli strikes on Iran this week have brought new dangers and made prisoners one of the country’s most at-risk groups.

Arnaud, author of "La Révolution intérieure" (The Internal Revolution), spoke to FRANCE 24 about his fears that the Iranian regime will use the conflict to crack down even harder on prisoners in a bid to rid itself of internal enemies.

FRANCE 24: Human rights groups are reporting that the conflict in Iran has placed prisoners in great danger – for example, that they not being provided with food and are being refused shelter during Israeli and US strikes. Can your experience put this in context, notably what daily life is like there?

Louis Arnaud: I was held in Ward 209, the Iranian intelligence service’s high-security wing in Evin prison for political prisoners. And it was a slaughterhouse. 

People were thrown into cells without windows, without beds, stripped of everything, living under lights that never go out, blurring the notion of time. We were barely fed enough. 

And then there was the humiliation and torture to force you to confess what they've decided to make you confess to. 

On top of this, Iran has a history of ramping up its violence in the context of any conflict. The regime increases its mistreatment, violence and even executions under the guise of external events such as a war. This is what happened during the Iran-Iraq war, when tens of thousands of prisoners were executed, many outside of any legal framework. 

And the great fear today is exactly that – that executions of political prisoners will be carried out secretly, without notifying their families, so that the Iranian public cannot react and is presented with a fait accompli. 

There is also fear that political prisoners and common law prisoners will be subject to executions, abuse, violence and mistreatment, which is even worse than usual to frighten the population.

It’s a way for the regime to terrorise its people – particularly at this moment in time – because the regime's great fear is that the population will use this war to rise up again as it did in January. 

So prisoners are now more vulnerable than ever?

Absolutely, because the war is an opportunity for the regime to get rid of its opponents. It has already used this type of opportunity in the past. 

The regime is completely neglecting the prisoners who are trapped, who can't get out and find shelter [during air strikes]. Residents of the area surrounding Evin prison have been told to seek shelter, to evacuate the area as far as possible, which is obviously not possible for the prisoners.

The same thing happened during the Israeli-US 12-day war on Iran. The neighbourhood around Evin was bombed along with the prison itself, and prisoners were injured or killed in the bombardments while members of the prison administration had already fled. 

Watch moreAt least 71 killed in Israel's attack on Tehran's Evin prison

Today we are told that some members of the prison administration have already left and that the prison is in the hands of an unknown police force whose motives and objectives are unknown. 

Worse still, there is this huge fear that the prisoners have actually been moved with a view to using them as human shields, to prevent certain Revolutionary Guard targets from being attacked. 

What was it like living among the political prisoners in Evin? Who were they? 

I spent time with political prisoners in Evin during the "Women, Life, Freedom" movement for the first three months of my detention. I mixed with people from all walks of life – workers, bricklayers, students, doctors, poets, artists – who had risen up during this movement because they were at the height of despair. They were suffocating from a lack of freedom or dignity.

The people who rose up at that time are the same people who rose up again in January and were massacred. 

In the second part of my detention, I met long-term political prisoners – people serving sentences of five, 10, 20 and sometimes 30 years – who had already maybe served 10 years in prison. Some of these people might even have been part of the 1979 revolution and been in prison under the Shah’s previous regime, then returned to prison during the political purges at the start of the Islamic Republic. 

These people are the intellectual elite of the country. They are students from the best universities, they are sociologists, political scientists, defenders of human rights like Narges Mohammadi, who won the Nobel Peace Prize while we were in prison. 

Read moreIran sentences Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi to six years in prison

They were guiding lights who were locked up in prison. They have the absolute integrity to continue their fight from prison, even though they are under enormous pressure to give in. 

And they took me in as one of their own and have become my family. And it's these people who are today still on the front lines against the regime that wants to use this opportunity to eliminate them. 

Are you in contact with anyone in Iran at the moment? 

No, not in the prisons or in Iran because internet and communications have been cut off for more than 72 hours. 

You still have very strong links with Iran and Iranians. Regarding the current conflict, do you mainly feel fear, or are there some signs of hope for the future of the country?

We have to understand that Iranians have reached an unimaginable level of despair. 

For 47 years they have been imprisoned, tortured and massacred for wanting a little dignity, a little freedom. They have risen up again, and again, and again, and recently more than 30,000 people were slaughtered for this in just 12 days.

Read more‘As in wartime’: Iranian doctors recount deadly crackdown on protesters

There is immense trauma. Everyone knows at least one person who has died. 

And so Iranians have come to say to themselves, ‘We have no alternative but to be bombed. We've come to want them to drop bombs on us. And maybe we'll die. But, actually, it makes no difference whether we die from the mullah’s bullets or American bombs.’   

Iranians are one of the most educated populations in the world and the most educated population in the Middle East. They are perfectly aware that the Americans and the Israelis have a different agenda to their own, but they have been reduced to such despair.

It’s absolutely tragic, because it means that these people are reduced to hoping that these strikes will weaken the regime enough for them to seize their future. 

And anything is possible. But today, unfortunately, I'm rather pessimistic about what's going to happen. 

We hear Donald Trump say America will take care of the ballistic missiles and the nuclear weapons because they are a threat, then it's up to the Iranian people to use their freedom and seize their institutions if they wish. At the end of the day, the international military capabilities of the Revolutionary Guards may have been weakened, but they don't need much to massacre their population. 

And they are perfectly ready to do that. They have no desire to relinquish power. There is a climate of hatred in Iran following the January massacres. And for the Revolutionary Guards, it's kill or be killed. 

What I fear most is that, once the Israeli-American intervention is over and their military goals have been achieved, there will be another bloodbath in Iran.