An imprisoned Iranian Christian convert was beaten yesterday, resulting in a broken bone in the 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 the left hand following the beating and recommended a transfer to hospital, but at the time of writing Ghazal remains in prison, in severe pain.

Ghazal recently underwent an 11-day hunger strike in protest against the sentencing, and particularly one of the charges – “incitement to murder” – which Ghazal vehemently denied.

(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 the hunger strike at the request of friends, who had expressed serious concern.

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

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

After converting, the Islamic-law graduate was prevented from taking the bar examination and told to leave the country, while Ghazal’s spouse, a fellow convert, has been unable to access the medication required to manage Parkinson’s disease.