In Iran, Fear Grows Over Treatment of Arrested Election Demonstrators

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• GWEN IFILL:

  And still to come on the NewsHour tonight: "Bernanke On the Record"; and Elvis Costello, restless rocker.

  But first, we turn to the international controversy over allegations of deaths and torture in Iran's prisons. Today, Secretary of State Clinton said she deplored the reports of abuse, and she urged the release of political prisoners.

  Margaret Warner has more on that story.

• MARGARET WARNER:

  Iran's rulers cracked down hard last month when hundreds of thousands of demonstrators challenged what they said was a rigged presidential election. There were beatings and shootings in the streets, and police and militia arrested and jailed thousands of protestors.

  Now new controversy has arisen over what happened to the people who were detained. Their families have been demonstrating at the gates of Tehran's notorious Evin Prison, as seen in this YouTube video.

  The protests were sparked by stories of prison abuse and killings that have leaked out on Iranian opposition Web sites. Robert Worth of the New York Times has been reporting the story.

• ROBERT WORTH:

  There are people who have been in these prisons who've said they watched others being beaten to death, other people who say they saw people, you know, with officers stepping on their necks being forced to lick toilet bowls, other people who talk about just being beaten up physically, having great pressure put on them to confess to having plotted a coup or plotted a revolution.

  One woman said that she was pressured to say that she had sex with political figures. And, again, when they leave the prisons, sometimes they are forced to sign something saying, "I will not tell anyone that I was mistreated. I will say that I was treated just fine."