Lindsay Foreman, a British mother of two, was huddled over a landline in Tehran's Evin prison, telling her son Joe that the U.S.-Israeli bombing campaign had started. Warplanes had been circling above the Iranian capital all morning, and the rumble of explosions had sent prisoners scurrying beneath their metal-framed bunks.
Airstrikes had blown out windows in Ward 4 and plaster was falling from the ceiling, Ahmadreza Djalali, an Iranian-Swedish doctor, told his wife. Dozens of regular prison officers had fled and been replaced by hard-line Revolutionary Guards.
The situation in Evin prison, where at least three Americans are being held hostage, has grown increasingly dire. The prison is a symbol of both the Islamic Republic's repressive present and a more hopeful future. Families of political prisoners there and in other jails described their loved ones as stuck between an embattled regime that regularly threatens them with execution and the bombardments of the U.S.-Israeli air campaign they hope will free them, yet fear may ultimately harm them.
The U.S. government won't confirm how many of Iran's prisoners are Americans being held as hostages, but the Foley Foundation, an advocacy organization for the unjustly detained, said there are about six and warned they now face 'unprecedented danger' because of the airstrikes.
