Iran: Prisoners' Lives 'At Risk', Says Rights Groups As Fire At Notorious Tehran Jail Kills 4

The fire broke out exactly a month after the protests over the death of 22-year-old Amini had started. She was arrested for violating the country's strict dress code for women.

Demonstrators carry Iranian flags while marching during the "March of Solidarity for Iran" in Washington, DC, on October 15, 2022. Demonstrations over the death of Mahsa Amini, enter a fifth week. Amini, 22, died on September 16, three days after she was arrested by Iran's notorious morality police.

Source : AFP

New Delhi: The sound of explosions and gunshots were heard after a fire broke out on Saturday night inside the vast complex in Iran's northern Tehran. The complex was smothered by smoke and engulfed by flames, news agency AFP reported citing footage from social media.

The fire that broke out in Iran's Evin prison in Tehran overnight killed four inmates and left 61 others injured, the judicial authority said on its website, as cited by AFP. The cause of the fire is still not clear. The fire broke out exactly a month after the protests over the death of 22-year-old Amini began. She was arrested for violating the country's strict dress code for women.

Evin, the prison in Tehran, is infamous for the ill-treatment of political prisoners, AFP reported. The prison also holds foreign detainees as well as thousands of people facing criminal charges and is reported to have hundreds of those who were arrested during the demonstrations over Amini's death.

The protests have developed into a movement against the Islamic republic, confronting its clerical leadership with one of its biggest challenges since the ousting of the Shah in 1979, according to AFP.

"Evin Prison in Tehran is on fire and shots can clearly be heard. The life of every political and ordinary crime prisoner is at grave risk", the news agency quoted Oslo-based non-government group Iran Human Rights (IHR) as saying.

It also said authorities had closed off roads leading to the prison in an apparent bid to stop protests taking place outside the jail.

According to AFP's report, some of the protesters headed there on foot and chanted  "Death to the dictator" which is one of the main slogans of the protest movement. It could be heard in videos shared by the social media channel 1500tasvir.

"Prisoners, including political prisoners, are completely defenceless inside that prison," AFP quoted Hadi Ghaemi, director of the New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) as saying while expressing his concern for the "prisoners being killed".

Freedom of expression group Article 19 said it had heard reports of telephone and Internet connections at Evin being cut and that it was "extremely worried for the safety of Evin's prisoners", AFP reported.

According to the report, Iranian state media said early Sunday that the fire caused during "riots and clashes" at the prison had been extinguished.

The situation was now calm and the clashes had "nothing to do with the recent unrest in the country", the IRNA news agency said citing a Tehran prosecutor, as cited by AFP.

Evin prison holds foreign inmates including French-Iranian academic Fariba Adelkhah and US citizen Siamak Namazi, whose family said he was taken back into custody this week after a temporary release. Namazi's US attorney Jared Genser said he had spoken to his family and "is safe and has been moved to a secure area of Evin Prison", AFP reported.

Australian academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert, who was held in Evin for most of her 800-plus days behind bars in Iran, told AFP she had heard that all the women political prisoners were safe.

US State Department spokesman Ned Price said Washington was monitoring the incident "with urgency", warning that Iran was "fully responsible for the safety of our wrongfully detained citizens" and calling for their quick release.

Young Women Leading Current Wave Of Street Protests Post Amini’s Death

Young women are at the forefront of the current wave of street protests that erupted after Amini died on September 16, three days after falling into a coma following her arrest by Iran's notorious morality police.

Rights groups reported protests in solidarity with the prisoners inside Evin in Tehran late into the night, after angry demonstrators had taken to streets across Iran on Saturday despite internet cuts, as reported by AFP.

"Guns, tanks, fireworks; the mullahs must get lost," women without hijabs chanted at a gathering at Tehran's Shariati Technical and Vocational College, AFP reported citing a video widely shared online.

Scores of jeering and whistling protesters hurled projectiles at security forces near a landmark roundabout in Hamedan city, west of Tehran, in footage verified by AFP.

(With Inputs from AFP)