Name Unknown x 100
23 Jun 2025
Evin, Tehran (Iran)
Bombed
Around 100 trans inmates are missing presumed dead after an Israeli missile strike on the prison where they were being held by the regime demolished the prison's transgender wing.
Around 100 transgender people who were being held at a notorious Iranian prison are presumed dead after Israel’s assault on the facility last month.
As The New York Times reports, Israeli missiles struck Evin Prison in Tehran on June 23, during the country’s 12-day war with Iran. While Iranian officials say the attack killed 79 people and injured dozens more, the Times says that the number of confirmed casualties is expected to rise.
Human rights lawyer Reza Shafakhah told the paper that about 100 trans inmates remain missing and are presumed dead. The Israeli missile attacks reportedly “flattened” the section of the prison in which they were being held.
As the Times notes, Evin Prison is notorious for its detention, interrogation, torture, and execution of prisoners, including political dissidents, and has become a symbol of the Iranian regime’s oppression.
Speaking to the BBC World Service in February, one transgender woman who was imprisoned in Evin multiple times for alleged offenses including “offending public decency” and “wearing women’s clothes, repulsive makeup” recalled trans inmates being sexually harassed and assaulted by guards and prison doctors. Australian LGBTQ+ outlet the Star Observer also cites a former trans inmate whose quotes describing conditions in the prison’s transgender ward were published in Peace Mark magazine in 2019.
“When you go to the transgender ward, you can’t even see the sunlight,” they said. “During my detention, except for the two times I was transferred to the infirmary with begging and pleading, I hadn’t seen the sunlight.”
According to the Times, Israeli officials described the attack on Evin as “symbolic,” with Foreign Minister Gideon Saar reportedly suggesting in a social media post that the attack was a form of liberation.
But as the Washington Post notes, military attacks on prisons raise humanitarian and legal concerns due to the vulnerability of inmates. The Times reports that prisoners, families, and activists in Iran criticized the Israeli attack as showing a disregard for the lives of prisoners as well as the visiting families, lawyers, medical staff, and administrative workers at the prison when the missiles hit around noon during a workday.
An Israeli Defense Forces spokesperson claimed the prison was used for “intelligence operations against the State of Israel, including counterespionage” and that the attack was “carried out in a precise manner to mitigate harm to civilians imprisoned within the prison to the greatest extent possible.”
However, the Post reports that a visitation area for families of prisoners and a medical center were among the locations damaged in the strike. According to the Post’s analysis, at least four civilians who did not work at Evin were among those killed, including two children.
Contrary to Israel’s reported rhetoric about liberation, one Iranian dissident who was imprisoned at Evin described the chaotic aftermath of the attack as “a slow death.”
“The bombing by the U.S. and Israel didn’t kill us. Then the Islamic Republic brought us to a place that will practically kill us,” she told family members in a call recording shared with the Associated Press.
As Erin in the Morning’s S. Baum notes, nearly two dozen prominent individuals, many of whom have been held at Evin, released a joint statement late last month warning that the attack has already led to a crackdown by the Iranian regime on political dissent. The attack has also renewed criticism of Israel’s “pinkwashing” of both its war with Iran and its ongoing campaign in Gaza, justifying its military actions, in part, as preserving LGBTQ+ freedoms in the region.
*[Editor's Note: This case highlights both repression against trans people by the Iranian regime and the callous way civilians are all too often targeted in state-level conflicts.
Although we do not have any names - or even any direct information on the exact number of victims - given the circumstances it seems highly likely that significant numbers of trans inmates were killed in this attack, and while ideally we would add a page for each of them, for now this page is the least that we can do.]
https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/over-100-trans-people-missing-or
https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2025/07/100-trans-inmates-presumed-after-israeli-on-notorious-iranian/
https://www.thepinknews.com/2025/07/07/israel-iran-evin-prison-trans-inmates/
https://www.advocate.com/world/iran-trans-prisoners-missing-israel
https://www.thepinknews.com/2025/07/07/israel-iran-evin-prison-trans-inmates/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2025/07/06/israel-iran-evin-prison-attack/ [https://archive.is/ZwAcP]
https://www.starobserver.com.au/news/over-100-trans-inmates-presumed-dead-after-israeli-strike-on-iranian-prison/237546 [https://archive.is/3j8se]
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/06/world/middleeast/israel-iran-evin-prison.html [https://archive.is/NAfwE]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evin_Prison
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=582439441376969
