disciplinary measures may be imposed after investigation by a disciplinary council composed of judicial and prison officials, although the Regulations do not specify the offences that may be subject to punishments. If the disciplinary council finds the accused prisoner guilty by majority vote, it may impose “detention in solitary confinement for a maximum of 20 days.”26 The lack of regulations for holding detainees in solitary confinement outside of the circumstances predicted under Prison Regulations put detainees at risk of arbitrary solitary confinement, and for prolonged periods of time. Article 175 of Iran’s Prison Regulations stipulates that solitary confinement should not exceed 20 days,27 while the UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (or Nelson Mandela’s rules) consider solitary confinement longer than 15 days as prolonged solitary confinement. 28 The Human Rights Committee has stipulated that the prolonged solitary confinement of detainees may amount to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.29 Reports suggest that Section 209 of the Evin Prison in Tehran, under the control of the Ministry of Intelligence, is a place of systematic and large-scale use of solitary confinement “for its own sake and not for traditional disciplinary purposes,” 30 31 32 as the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention first noted during its last visit of the prison in 2003.33 Similarly, Section 240 of Evin Prison, partially under the authority of the Ministry of Intelligence and other security and intelligence units, has been reportedly used exclusively for holding prisoners in solitary confinement.34 35 Section 240 of Evin Prison reportedly contains 700 to 800 solitary confinement cells.36 The Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions considers that Section 240 is a “prison within a prison” that is “arbitrary in nature and must be ended.”37 The Government is reported as noting, in the 2020 Special Rapporteur on Iran’s report, that solitary confinement “is used only in rare instances during the judicial investigation, as well as a punitive measure in places of 26 Amnesty International, https://www.amnesty.org/download/Documents/MDE1327082016ENGLISH.PDF Ibid. 28 Rule 44, Nelson Mandela’s Rules or UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, https://www.unodc.org/documents/justice-and-prison-reform/Nelson_Mandela_Rules-E-ebook.pdf 29 UN Human Rights Committee (HRC), CCPR General Comment No. 20: Article 7 (Prohibition of Torture, or Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment), 10 March 1992, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/453883fb0.html 30 Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, https://iranhrdc.org/rights-disregarded-prisons-in-the-islamic-republic-ofiran/#2.1.1 31 Amnesty International, https://www.amnesty.org/download/Documents/MDE1310212019ENGLISH.pdf 32 En-HRANA, https://www.en-hrana.org/abdul-sattar-sheikh-transferred-solitary-confinement-evinprison?hilite=%27solitary%27%2C%27confinement%27%2C%27evin%27%2C%27prison%27 and https://www.hrw.org/reports/2008/iran0108/iran0108web.pdf 33 Country Visits, Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, https://www.ohchr.org/en/issues/detention/pages/visits.aspx 34 Amnesty International, https://www.amnesty.org/download/Documents/8000/mde130232014en.pdf 35 Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, https://iranhrdc.org/rights-disregarded-prisons-in-the-islamic-republic-ofiran/#2.1.1 36 Human Rights Watch, https://www.hrw.org/reports/2008/iran0108/iran0108web.pdf 37 Country Visits, Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, https://www.ohchr.org/en/issues/detention/pages/visits.aspx 27 4