An imprisoned Iranian Christian convert was beaten yesterday, resulting in a broken bone in her left hand, after protesting against worsening conditions inside the women’s ward of Tehran’s Evin Prison.

Ghazal Marzban, who was recently sentenced to over nine years in prison on charges of “propaganda against the state” and “gathering and collusion against national security”, was protesting against overcrowding in the prison, after 50 new prisoners arrived.

The prison doctor diagnosed a fracture of her left hand following the beating and recommended that she be transferred to hospital, but at the time of writing she remains in prison, in severe pain.

Ghazal recently underwent an 11-day hunger strike in protest against her sentencing, and particularly one of the charges – “incitement to murder” – which she vehemently denied and said was against her beliefs as a Christian.

(This charge stems from Article 512 of Iran’s penal code, which is often used against protesters and states: “Anyone who, with the intent to disrupt national security, induces or encourages people to war with one another and slaughter each other, regardless of whether or not [such actions] cause murder … shall be sentenced to one to five years’ imprisonment.”)

Ghazal ended her hunger strike at the request of friends, who were concerned at the deterioration of her health.

Ghazal was rearrested in January, having previously spent two months in Evin Prison on charges of “propaganda against the regime by chanting slogans”, and her Bible and other Christian literature were confiscated.

Ghazal was first arrested in November 2024, after protesting against the harassment she had endured since converting to Catholicism in 2017.

After her conversion, the Islamic-law graduate was prevented from taking her bar examination and told she should leave the country, while her husband, a fellow convert, has been unable to access the medication he requires to manage his Parkinson’s disease.