Iran prisoners ‘on edge’ over virus threat

PARIS: The crippling uncertainty behind bars as a deadly disease rages. A lack of proper sanitary equipment. Riots by desperate detainees that allegedly have left dozens dead. And executions that proceed in spite of the outbreak.

There is controversy over the magnitude of the coronavirus outbreak in Iran, which according to official figures has left almost 5,300 people dead although other sources inside and outside Iran insist the real figure is twice as high.

The uncertainty is even greater over the effects of COVID-19 within Iran´s overcrowded prisons, estimated to hold a quarter of a million people. But activists and supporters of political prisoners are sounding the alarm over the risk that the disease has already penetrated deep into the Iranian prison system, even as officials insist the outbreak is beginning to slow.

Iran says it has released around 100,000 inmates, including 1,000 foreigners, to ease the pressure on the prison system during the outbreak. But dual nationals and prominent detainees regarded by the international community as prisoners of conscience have been kept behind bars, despite the risk of infection.

"The virus is not going to be contained anytime soon in Iran," Hadi Ghaemi, executive director of the New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran, told AFP. "This means that places like prisons -- which are by definition anti-social distancing -- are going to be very, very vulnerable," he added, describing Iranian prisons as "overcrowded" and noting that the releases covered "only a fraction" of detainees.

Ghaemi accused the Iranian authorities of using the epidemic as an instrument of "torture on prisoners, especially political prisoners" by not releasing them while others went free. "Prisoners are very nervous and that keeps them constantly on a psychological edge which is no difference from torture," he said.

US-Iranian businessman Siamak Namazi has now been held in jail for four and a half years. British-Iranian Anousheh Ashouri has been in detention since August 2017. And Australian Kylie Moore-Gilbert, detained in September 2018, is serving a 10-year sentence.

Some well-known foreign detainees have been allowed to go free. Roland Marchal, a French researcher arrested in June 2019, returned to France last month. Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a dual British-Iranian citizen, was allowed leave on a temporary furlough.

But most prisoners of conscience and dual and foreign nationals remain imprisoned, United Nations special rapporteurs warned in a statement last week. "Some are at great risk from COVID-19 due to their age or underlying health conditions," the statement said.

The rapporteurs raised particular concern over the situation of Morad Tahbaz, a prominent conservationist with Iranian, American and British citizenship, and the Iranian-Austrian national Massud Mossaheb, who "are over 60 years old and could experience serious health consequences from COVID-19 due to their age, including loss of life".

The list of dual national and political detainees who remain in Iranian jails is grimly long, including Fariba Adelkhah, another academic with French-Iranian nationality who was detained at the same time as Marchal.

Another hearing in her trial on national security charges took place on Sunday. "The fears are real, given the seriousness of the health situation in the country; Fariba is in a cell with several other people," said Jean-Francois Bayart.