A Christian man jailed in Iran for being a member of a "deviant religion" endured gruelling torture inside the walls of an infamous prison and was unable to comfort his terminally ill son before he died.
Mehdi (Yasser) Akbari has told the Mirror of his ordeal in messages smuggled from prison, where he has been incarcerated for six years.
In December 2021, single parent Yasser was hit with the worst news of his life. His only child and beloved son Amir-Ali had died from complications related to his congenital cerebral palsy at a care facility in Tehran.
And what made the pain all the worse was that Yasser couldn't be with him during his final hours because he was "busy managing the bedbugs" in a desolate cell in the infamous Evin prison on the outskirts of the city.
In 2017, Yasser, a law-abiding citizen and devout Christian, was chucked behind the bars of the notorious lockup - which has housed other falsely accused inmates like Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe - on charges relating to national security.
However, it didn't take long before the truth behind his persecution was revealed - when the judge presiding over his case branded Christianity a "false sect" and "deviant religion".
Yasser was convicted of “acting against national security by forming a house-church” and sentenced to 10 years imprisonment. An appeal to the supreme court was unsuccessful and the verdict was upheld.
The trial was just the beginning of Yasser's ordeal. Once inside the walls of the prison - which is known for its brutal guards and endless torture reports - he spent long stints in solitary confinement and underwent enforced sensory deprivation while plagued with the guilt of not being able to be with his dying son.
In communication smuggled from behind bars and passed to The Mirror, Yasser told how before his son's death, he was granted just "20 golden minutes" to pay the teenager a visit his son as he lay gravely ill in hospital. Two months later Amir-Ali, 18, was dead.
Yasser said: "My son was not able to visit me, as he was in the hospital.
"Finally, after writing dozens of letters and presenting medical documents as proof, the prison authorities agreed that I would go to the bedside of my son, who was in the last days of his earthly life - but in prison clothes and handcuffs, while prison guards and security officers accompanied me.
"When Amir-Ali saw me in handcuffs and prison clothes, he was reassured that I had not abandoned him even in such conditions.
"I was the subject of unfair slander and the victim of an unjust sentence, but not for a moment had I forgotten my child, who was struggling with illness.
"It was as though my son had endured his painful illness for just a little longer so we might have one final chance to meet, albeit in prison clothes and in the presence of officers."
Despite the harrowing situation, Yasser still looks back on those few minutes - the "last time I hugged my Amir-Ali" - as the "best moment of my life".
Yasser added: "Two months later, Amir-Ali passed away. I mourned his loss in prison, and bemoaned my sense of remorse for not being by his bedside in his last moments.
According to the most-recent data, the Muslim population of Iran stands at 98.5 per cent, with the vast majority of them being Shi'a. Other Islamic sects are granted the same rights and respect under the Iranian constitution.
And although this extends to Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians on paper, there are widespread reports of abuses and discrimination.
In some cases, like Yasser's this involves being jailed on trumped-up charges.
The most compelling evidence of human rights abuses at the Evin jail was shared in 2021, when a trove of 16 CCTV clips were leaked to Amnesty International.
In the videos, prison guards were seen beating, sexual harassing, neglecting and treating the prisoners they were responsible for poorly and subjecting them to inhumane treatment.
“This disturbing footage offers a rare glimpse of the cruelty regularly meted out to prisoners in Iran. It is shocking to see what goes on inside the walls of Evin prison, but sadly the abuse depicted in these leaked video clips is just the tip of the iceberg of Iran’s torture epidemic,” said Heba Morayef, Middle East and North Africa Regional Director at Amnesty International at the time.
Amnesty said prisoners were subjected to "floggings, electric shocks, mock executions, waterboarding, sexual violence, suspension, force-feeding of chemical substances, and deliberate deprivation of medical care" in their 2022 report.
