\nLONDON: Leaked letters from Iranian officials obtained by Amnesty International have revealed Tehran\u2019s complacency in the face of the coronavirus crisis and the country\u2019s overstretched prison system.<\/p>\n
\nThe rights group said in a statement Friday that Iran\u2019s prisons remained \u201ccatastrophically unequipped for outbreaks,\u201d after reviewing letters from prison officials to the Ministry of Health that raised the alarm over a serious shortage of essential medical supplies.<\/p>\n
\nPrison officials\u2019 requests for millions of masks and gloves, hundreds of thousands of litres of hand sanitizer and disinfectant, and other equipment essential for preventing the spread of the virus received no response from the Ministry of Health.<\/p>\n
\nDiana Eltahawy, Amnesty\u2019s deputy regional director for the Middle East and North Africa, said: \u201cThese official letters provide damning evidence of the government\u2019s appalling failure to protect prisoners. Requests for urgently needed disinfectant products, protective equipment and medical devices have been ignored for months.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nThe leaked letters, sent by officials from Iran\u2019s Prisons Organization, singled out the presence of \u201colder (people), pregnant women, nursing mothers and their infants who suffer from a weak immune system\u201d throughout the country\u2019s prisons, and warned that government inaction would result in \u201csecurity hazards\u201d and \u201cirreparable harm.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nThese vulnerable populations made the lack of protective equipment \u201cparticularly alarming,\u201d Eltahawy said.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cOvercrowding, poor ventilation, lack of basic sanitation and medical equipment, and deliberate neglect of prisoners\u2019 health problems, are making Iranian prisons a perfect breeding ground for COVID-19. The Iranian authorities must stop denying the health crisis in Iran\u2019s prisons and take urgent steps to protect prisoners\u2019 health and lives.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nTehran claimed in April that there had not been a single COVID-19 related death in Iranian prisons, but the documents obtained by Amnesty, as well as investigation by other rights groups, paint a far grimmer picture.<\/p>\n
\nPrisoners with coronavirus symptoms are said to be neglected and ignored for days, before being put in solitary confinement – without medical care – when their symptoms worsen.<\/p>\n
\nAmnesty\u2019s statement claimed that at least 20 have died in Iranian prisons from the virus, and at least one female prisoner who tested positive for the virus had been forcibly disappeared.<\/p>\n
\nThe outbreak within Iran\u2019s prison system is aggravated by chronic overcrowding.<\/p>\n
\nDespite the official capacity of 85,000 detainees, Iran\u2019s prison population in July last year was around 240,000.<\/p>\n
\nTehran introduced a prison furlough scheme to prevent the spread of COVID-19, but only 29,000 prisoners were released. This leaves the number of prisoners still nearly three times higher than official capacity.<\/p>\n
\nAmnesty said the overcrowding had contributed to \u201cfilthy and insufficient bathroom facilities,\u201d \u201cwidespread insect infestations,\u201d and \u201c a severe shortage of beds, meaning many prisoners have to sleep on the floor.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\u201cWe once again call on Iranian authorities to urgently address overcrowding in prisons, including by immediately and unconditionally releasing all those detained for the peaceful exercise of their rights,\u201d Eltahawy said.<\/p>\n
\nThe Amnesty report also urged Tehran to \u201censure access to adequate food, water, health care, hygiene and bedding for all prisoners\u201d and to \u201callow international monitors, including the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran, to conduct independent, unannounced inspections of prisons.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Iran\u2019s prisons \u2018catastrophically unequipped\u2019 to deal with COVID-19: Amnesty LONDON: Leaked letters from Iranian officials obtained by Amnesty International have revealed Tehran\u2019s complacency in the face of the coronavirus crisis and the country\u2019s overstretched prison system. The rights group said in a statement Friday that Iran\u2019s prisons remained \u201ccatastrophically unequipped for outbreaks,\u201d after reviewing letters…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spotlight_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43394","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43394"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43394\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}