Iran’s Black Sites: The Chilling 1980s Revival

Tens of thousands of Iranians have vanished into clandestine detention sites where the regime operates beyond any judicial oversight, beyond any paper trail, and beyond the reach of desperate families searching for their loved ones.

Story Snapshot

Iranian authorities operate unofficial “black box” detention sites modeled on 1980s torture camps, holding tens of thousands without records or family notification
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei authorized live fire suppression orders as January 2026 protests evolved into massacres with hundreds killed
Leaked videos from Kahrizak morgue show approximately 250 bodies with gunshot wounds as secret executions accelerate in major cities
Human rights organizations warn detainees face torture, forced confessions, and potential execution with no judicial process or documentation
Sites like Shiraz’s Soroush facility operate in warehouses and abandoned buildings under State Security Forces control

The Ghost Prisons That Officially Do Not Exist

Iranian authorities resurrected a horror from their past to crush current dissent. These black box detention sites mirror the coffin-like cells of Ghezel Hesar Prison near Tehran from the 1980s, where female prisoners affiliated with the MEK endured sleep deprivation, starvation, and beatings in spaces so small they could only squat. The distinguishing brutality of these facilities lies in their complete absence from official records. No registration means no accountability, no oversight, and no hope for families who search formal prison systems only to be told their relatives simply do not exist in government databases.

The Center for Human Rights in Iran identifies these sites as among their gravest concerns precisely because the lack of oversight creates conditions for extreme abuse. Detainees vanish into warehouses, abandoned buildings, and facilities like the Soroush center in Shiraz. State Security Forces operate these locations with protection for informants, including drug traffickers who feed the arrest pipeline. The regime learned from its 1980s playbook that disappearing people without documentation provides plausible deniability while maximizing terror among the population.

From Street Protests to Secret Executions

The trajectory from demonstration to death follows a chillingly efficient path. Protests erupted in late December 2025 and escalated rapidly into what human rights monitors now document as the 2026 massacres. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei authorized the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to use live fire on protesters through Supreme National Security Council directives. By January 8, 2026, internet blackouts aided suppression efforts while IRGC troops deployed from Iraq under the guise of religious pilgrimage. Judiciary Head Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Eje’i issued his roadmap for repression between January 7 and 21, demanding speed and decisiveness in arrests and executions.

Informant networks funneled arrestees directly to unofficial sites rather than registered prisons. The Human Rights Activists News Agency tracked the carnage with grim precision: 392 deaths in Rasht alone, 24 children killed including a three-year-old, and 17 executions in just two days across multiple cities. By February 6, leaked videos from Kahrizak morgue revealed approximately 250 bodies bearing gunshot wounds. HRANA documented a disturbing pattern where security forces finished off wounded protesters rather than providing medical care. The regime disguised some deaths as suicides while administering unknown injections to others.

The Machinery of State Terror Operates in Silence

Families desperate for information cycle through official prisons only to encounter bureaucratic dead ends. Courts claim no records exist for their missing relatives because those relatives occupy a legal black hole. This administrative erasure serves dual purposes: it enables torture and forced confessions without witness, and it maintains operational secrecy for planned mass executions. Iran Human Rights Monitor detailed how January uprising detainees in facilities like Soroush face imminent execution following a template that begins with espionage accusations broadcast on state television and culminates in killing prisoners the regime has spent weeks breaking through torture.

The power structure flows with brutal clarity from Khamenei through the IRGC and judiciary to local State Security Forces commanders who control individual sites. This hierarchy ensures orders for suppression cascade efficiently while diffusing responsibility enough that the regime can deny specific atrocities. Opposition groups including the National Council of Resistance of Iran and human rights organizations document abuses through leaked information and family testimonies, but the regime responds with silence from official channels. One reformist accused security forces of staging violence to justify crackdowns, though this claim remains unverified amid the chaos.

The Price Paid in Blood and Broken Families

Short-term impacts manifest in enforced disappearances that shatter families and torture sessions designed to extract false confessions for show trials. The terror extends beyond those detained to create a chilling effect across Iranian society. Long-term implications threaten whatever remained of rule of law in Iran while potentially triggering international sanctions as evidence accumulates. Cities like Rasht and Shiraz bear concentrated trauma with hundreds dead and thousands disappeared. The social fabric tears under the weight of state-imposed isolation and murder, while the political calculus for the regime balances temporary consolidation through fear against the risk of intensified resistance.

Human rights monitoring organizations strain under the scale of abuses while exile protests grow across Europe and global scrutiny intensifies on Iran’s judicial system. The Center for Human Rights in Iran and HRANA provide ground-level data that cross-verifies detentions and deaths, building an evidence base that contradicts regime denials. These black sites represent calculated evil: the deliberate choice to operate outside any pretense of law to maximize suffering while minimizing international accountability. The coffin-sized cells and squatting torture prove the regime cherry-picked the cruelest tactics from its 1980s predecessor facilities, demonstrating that institutional memory preserves methods of brutality across decades.