Soap shortage, disinfection at a standstill, Iranian authorities are not doing what is necessary to limit the spread of COVID-19 in overcrowded prisons in the country, including those where famous personalities are detained, an organization denounced Wednesday defense of human rights.
Disinfection of prisons has been stopped, basic hygiene products such as soap are lacking and prisoners released to decongest establishments at the start of the coronavirus epidemic are for many back behind bars, said the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for human rights in Iran (ABC), in a report released Wednesday.
Since the start of the epidemic and despite the fact that it is the most affected country in the region, prison officials claim to be exemplary in the management of the virus in prisons, claiming to have given clear guidelines to limit the contagion .
The report by ABC, an NGO headquartered in Washington and which has compiled interviews with former prisoners and various sources in Iran, says on the contrary that most of the initial instructions have been abandoned.
“The situation of Iranian prisons in terms of hygiene has not improved, it has rather deteriorated sharply,” said ABC, stressing that “disinfection procedures have been stopped in several prisons, apparently for lack of budget ”.
Unnecessary quarantine
Some establishments have reduced the free distribution of food, basic hygiene products and protective equipment.
In addition, new arrivals pass prisoners already in detention in showers, while exercising or transporting detainees.
Iran’s “initial effort” which released tens of thousands of prisoners at the start of the epidemic to reduce prison overcrowding “appears to have been abandoned in late spring when prisoners were called back from their homes. exit permit “.
However, according to the judicial authorities, more than 60,000 detainees still had exit permits at the beginning of August.
For Roya Boroumand, director and co-founder of the Center, it is impossible to quantify the spread of the coronavirus but the elements collected by ABC are worrying.
“Why are the numbers not released? We suspect they are really, really bad, ”she told AFP.
Despite the epidemic context, Tehran “continues to arrest people”: political prisoners, drug addicts or followers of Bahaism (dissident branch of Shiism), criticized Ms. Boroumand. “It’s a real problem”.
In Zanjan prison in northern Iran, where journalist and human rights activist Narges Mohammadi is imprisoned, authorities have failed to prevent contamination of the entire women’s quarter in following a first case.
“Sewer overflow”
Ms Mohammadi, a former partner of lawyer and Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi, in poor health, apparently contracted the virus in detention. In July, UN experts called for her emergency release when she was showing symptoms of COVID-19.
Incarcerated since 2015, the former spokesperson for the Center for Human Rights Defenders in Iran is serving a 10-year prison sentence for “creating and leading an illegal group”.
At Qarchak Prison, where Australian Kylie Moore Gilbert was transferred earlier this year, there is an “overflow of sewers”, salt water as drinking water, and meals reduced to one. quarter of the level before the epidemic. Since the start of the epidemic, there has been only one distribution of disinfectant products.
Kylie Moore, an Australian-British scholar and expert in Islamic studies, is serving a 10-year prison sentence on charges of espionage.
In Evin prison in Tehran, 12 of the 17 prisoners held in ward 8, that of political prisoners, were detected as positive for the coronavirus on August 9. A source told ABC the situation in Tabriz prison, north of Tehran, as “catastrophic”.
“If left unchecked, the COVID-19 epidemic will continue to infect more prisoners and prison officers, with tragic consequences,” according to the organization.