In early 2026, just days after walking free from a crumbling prison cell in northern Iran, Mehdi Mahmoudian sat down for a searing interview published around March 1, 2026, in The New Yorker. Titled exactly “What Mehdi Mahmoudian Saw Inside the Iranian Prison System,” the piece by Cora Engelbrecht landed like a thunderclap.
It wasn’t simply another testimony of repression. It was the voice of a man who, by his own count, has spent about nine of the past sixteen years in prison. A journalist. A reformist activist. A political prisoner. A human rights defender. And, unexpectedly, a co-screenwriter of an Oscar-nominated film.
What he describes—across decades of imprisonment in facilities like Towhid Prison and Evin Prison—is a system defined by torture, overcrowding, mock executions, family threats, and moments of startling humanity.
But his story unfolds far beyond prison walls.
From Teenage Dissident to Political Prisoner: The First Arrest (Late 1990s–Early 2000s)
Born in 1978, Mahmoudian was first arrested around age 20 in Tehran. Inside Towhid Prison, the experience was immediate and brutal.
For three consecutive days, interrogators handcuffed his hands behind his back while he lay on the floor. Food and water were placed on him from above. He was forced to urinate and defecate in his clothes. The physical consequences lingered—lasting kidney damage that persisted for years.
At 22, he endured a mock execution. Blindfolded. A noose around his neck. Standing on a stool in darkness for 30 to 60 minutes. When the stool was kicked away, the rope was loose. He fell harmlessly—but the terror was real.
It was psychological warfare designed to fracture the human mind.
The One-Handed Guard: An Encounter That Changed Everything
Two years later, on a rainy winter afternoon in 2001, Mahmoudian saw a man struggling to fix his car outside the Tehran print shop where he worked.
The man had one amputated arm.
Mahmoudian recognized him immediately—the guard who had tortured him using his left hand.
Instead of retaliation, he invited him inside for tea. A coworker repaired the car free of charge. Only as the man prepared to leave did Mahmoudian quietly reveal:
“I’m one of those people that you tortured.”
The guard fled. The next day, he returned—apologizing, claiming he had been following orders.
For Mahmoudian, this moment became foundational. Even torturers, he concluded, are trapped within systems of coercion. The idea of empathy—radical, uncomfortable empathy—would shape his activism and later artistic work.
2009–2014: Exposing Kahrizak and Paying the Price
Mahmoudian documented abuses at the notorious Kahrizak Detention Center, where detainees during the 2009 Green Movement protests faced rape, torture, and death.
His reporting contributed to Kahrizak’s closure. It also led to his five-year sentence for “mutiny against the system.”
He endured solitary confinement, collapsed a lung, and was diagnosed with epilepsy around 2010. In letters from prison—including one addressed to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei—he described sexual assaults and the selling of vulnerable inmates between cells at Raja’i Shahr Prison.
His words were detailed. Unflinching. Dangerous.
Major Imprisonments and Health Crises (2019–2024)
Mahmoudian’s later sentences included charges such as:
- “Propaganda against the system”
- “Insulting the Supreme Leader”
- “Colluding against national security”
- “Spreading false news”
These stemmed from signing open letters, criticizing COVID-19 management, economic policies, and memorializing victims of the Ukrainian plane crash.
He served 30 months in Evin Prison between 2021 and 2024, including time in Ward 2-A under the Revolutionary Guards. Medical furloughs in 2023 addressed kidney and heart complications.
He was released January 3, 2024.
But prison was not done with him.
Inside Evin: Meeting Jafar Panahi and the Birth of an Oscar-Nominated Film
In 2022, inside Evin’s House of Detention, Mahmoudian met filmmaker Jafar Panahi.
Over seven months, the two became close. When Panahi contracted COVID-19, Mahmoudian cared for him. Before Panahi’s release, Mahmoudian whispered:
“Don’t forget the guys in prison.”
That promise evolved into It Was Just an Accident, covertly shot and later nominated for Best Original Screenplay at the Oscars.
The film’s story mirrors Mahmoudian’s life: a mechanic recognizes his torturer—identified by the squeak of a prosthetic leg—and gathers former detainees for a reckoning grounded not in violence, but moral confrontation.
Mahmoudian contributed dialogue and a pivotal tree sequence. Torture accounts in the film were verbatim from survivors. Characters were composites of real prisoners.
The message is clear: “It’s not because they resorted to violence that we should, too.”
June 23, 2025: The Israeli Airstrike on Evin During the Twelve-Day War
Mahmoudian was inside Ward 4 of Evin Prison when Israeli missiles struck on June 23, 2025.
Key Details of the Strike
| Date | Location | Impact | Mahmoudian’s Role |
| June 23, 2025 | Evin Prison, Tehran | Medical clinic, food warehouse, areas near Ward 209 hit | Organized rescue efforts |
| Aftermath | Rubble & fires | 15–20 bodies recovered | Freed trapped prisoners and guards |
Missiles hit the medical clinic, food and hygiene warehouses, and areas near Ward 209. Fires erupted. Rubble buried inmates and guards alike.
Mahmoudian and fellow prisoner Abolfazl Ghadiani pulled 15–20 bodies from debris—prisoners, doctors, nurses, guards, officials.
Locked gates trapped both interrogators and inmates. Mahmoudian broke locks to free them.
“I did not rescue interrogators,” he later said. “I rescued human beings.”
An hour and a half later, authorities regained control. One rescued official pointed a gun at Mahmoudian’s head and forced him back inside.
Violent Transfers and Release (September 2025)
Following the strike, prisoners were transferred to facilities including Greater Tehran Penitentiary. During a violent confrontation in August 2025, Mahmoudian and others were beaten—batons and electric shocks—after refusing handcuffs and shackles.
He was released September 15, 2025, under general amnesty.
New charges followed.
January 31, 2026: 2:30 A.M. Arrest and Nowshahr Prison
Days after the Oscar nomination of It Was Just an Accident, and amid renewed protests, an antiterrorism unit stormed Mahmoudian’s home at 2:30 a.m. Guns were pointed at him and his companions Abdollah Momeni and Vida Rabbani.
Their crime? Signing a statement condemning the regime’s “organized state crime against humanity” in killing protesters.
He was moved from Chalus to high-security Sari, then to Nowshahr Prison in Mazandaran province.
Conditions were dire.
Nowshahr Prison Conditions
- 25 m² cell holding up to 33 people
- Mostly young protesters under 25
- Rotating sleep due to overcrowding
- Visible torture wounds weeks later
He witnessed horrifying scenes:
- A father forced to watch guards threaten to hang his eight-month-old baby unless he confessed.
- A couple beaten in front of each other; their 14-year-old relative also assaulted.
- Three young detainees heavily drugged for 35–40 days due to severe mental health breakdowns.
Mahmoudian was physically struck only once—but emotionally devastated.
“Hours and hours of crying every day,” he said after release. “Any time I’m alone, I am crying.”
He was released February 17, 2026, on bail of 6.5 billion toman (approximately US$47,500).
The Bigger Picture: Empathy, War, and Iran’s Uncertain Future
Mahmoudian’s philosophy remains radical in its simplicity.
During mock executions, during missile strikes, and during torture. He says prisoners did not think about ethnicity, ideology, or politics.
“We were just twelve human beings.”
Mehdi opposes war entirely, arguing that foreign intervention would only lead to civilian massacre and destruction. He hopes Iranians bring change themselves.
“The Islamic Republic is on the verge of falling,” he said. “All it needs is just the push of a finger.”
But he fears the regime’s willingness to kill to survive.
Why Mehdi Mahmoudian’s Story Resonates Globally
For audiences in the UK and USA—where free press, protest rights, and judicial protections are cornerstones of democracy—Mahmoudian’s account serves as a stark reminder of what happens when institutions become instruments of fear.
Yet his story is not only about brutality.
It is about resilience. Nonviolence. Radical empathy.
It is about a man who rescued the interrogators who once tormented him.
And who, even after nine years behind bars, continues to write, speak, and create art that insists on human dignity.
As the Oscar-nominated It Was Just an Accident reaches global audiences, the voice behind it—tempered in solitary confinement and sharpened by conscience—remains impossible to silence.
For the full account, his New Yorker interview stands as a primary, unfiltered testimony. But even there, one truth echoes above all:
Prison stripped away illusion. It did not strip away humanity.
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