This Saturday night, official Iranian media confirmed a fire in the main prison Tehran, in Iran. The incident was caused by a group of prisoners, who set fire to the clothing store. Quickly, a climate of chaos was generated that led to a confrontation between the inmates and the security forces of the prison. Evin, the largest prison in Tehran, where political prisoners are held.
“Now the situation is completely under control and peace is maintained in the prison”, announced a security source quoted by the official IRNA news agency. For its part, the agency Libraof the Judiciary, ratified the version and added that “the fire has been contained and extinguished.”
According to the reformist newspaper SharghInside the prison there were also explosions and the roads in the area were cut off by the Police. However, despite the roads being blocked, people began to approach the area on foot, according to the NGO Iran Human Rights.
Images of the incidents spread on social networks. In them you can see the flames and hear shots and explosions, accompanied by cries from the prisoners asking for “death to the dictator”, in reference to the supreme leader of Iran Ali Khamenei.
According to a firefighter who helped put out the flames, there are at least eight wounded.
Evin Prison is located west of Tehran and covers an area of 40 hectares. Some of its modules are controlled by the Judiciary, while others depend on the Ministry of Intelligence and the Intelligence Corps of the Guardians of the Revolution.
Various human rights groups have denounced torture against detainees, including political prisoners and inmates with dual nationality.
This incident takes place in the middle of the wave of protests that a month ago took place in the streets of the entire country, in which justice is demanded for the young Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini -who died at the hands of the morality police, who had arrested her for wearing the veil incorrectly- and who also asks for the end of misogynistic and archaic laws, along with the fall of Ali Khamenei.
Since then, according to Human Rights Activists have already registered more than 200 deaths -including 18 children- and 5,500 detainees as a result of the violent confrontations that take place with the police forces, who use firearms, tear gas and taser guns, among others. In another attempt by the regime to quell the protesters, a group of prosecutors secured a speedy justice process for the “troublemakers”, for which 60 detainees have already been processed.
Days ago, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had accused the “enemies” of Iran to fuel “these street speeches”added to the previous declarations of the president Ibrahim Raisiin which he had aimed against USA for directing a “failed policy of destabilization” against his nation. For his part, the US Secretary of State, Antony Blink, condemned this Friday the repression in the protests, lamented that Tehran possibly instrumentalize the gesture and called for the release of the detained protesters.
“Tehran will attempt to paint this and other expressions of solidarity with those defending their freedoms as evidence that the protests have been somehow fabricated outside of Iran. If they really believe that, it’s because they fundamentally don’t understand their own people,” he assured.
(With information from EFE and AFP)
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