Iran

Why this story?

The vast complex of cellblocks in the capital Tehran is proxy for the modern state: powerful and paranoid, factional and unpredictable, calculating and transactional, brutal and unaccountable.

Throughout the week we’ll be publishing our audio investigation, the searing testimonies of former prisoners, illustrations depicting life inside its concrete walls, and an interactive map of the sprawling facility. In investigating the dark prison in the heart of Tehran, we set out to open a door to Iran itself. Basia Cummings, editor