Rouhani: Prisoners' leave will be extended for another month
The President of Iran announced that prisoners will be granted leave until the end of May. Due to the widespread spread of the coronavirus, the authorities of the Islamic Republic of Iran sent 100,000 prisoners on leave, but opposed the release of political prisoners.
AFP reported from Tehran on Sunday, April 19, that Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, referring to the judiciary's approval for the release of prisoners, said at a meeting of the National Headquarters for Combating Coronavirus: "Previously, the release of prisoners was supposed to continue until the end of Farvard, but with our previous condition that prisoners whose release does not pose a danger should use the leave, this release will continue until the end of Ordibehesht."
Rouhani also said that the judiciary has made significant decisions regarding the continuation of prisoners' leave.
In its report from Tehran, the AFP quoted the Mizan news agency as saying that Gholamhossein Esmaeili, a spokesman for the judiciary, announced the formation of 500 special committees in all judicial districts across the country to review the situation of prisoners by May 10, and predicted that a significant portion of prisoners who have gone on leave will not return to prison.
The Judiciary Spokesperson said: "The results of these investigations will be communicated to the prisoner or his guarantor by May 10th at the latest, and we anticipate that by making maximum use of legal concessions and the specialized and team work of our colleagues, a significant portion of prisoners on leave will not return to prison, and even a number of current prisoners will be released from prison."
Political prisoners did not receive leave.
The Islamic Republic of Iran has released many criminals and ordinary prisoners from prison to prevent them from contracting the coronavirus, but political prisoners are still in prison, and this has greatly concerned the families of political prisoners.
As the Iranian President spoke about the continuation of prisoner releases, pressure on political prisoners and dual nationals has increased. On Sunday, the second hearing of the charges against Fariba Adelkhah, an Iranian-French researcher, was held in Tehran, presided over by Judge Salavati.
Also, the lawyer of Narges Mohammadi, spokesperson and vice-chair of the Center for Human Rights Defenders, who has been in prison for about seven years, announced yesterday that her client's request for leave and conditional release has been rejected.
The risk of political prisoners contracting the coronavirus
UN human rights experts called on Iran to immediately release prisoners of conscience, dual nationals, foreign nationals, and all those who have been "arbitrarily" detained.
77 political prisoners from the Pahlavi era also recently wrote an open letter to Javed Rehman, the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in Iran, calling for efforts to protect the lives and well-being of political prisoners imprisoned in the country. The signatories of the letter called on Javed Rehman to consider and pursue the release of political prisoners as “a step in the global fight against the Covid-19 epidemic.”
Iran is considered one of the main centers of the coronavirus outbreak. The official statistics on the coronavirus in Iran are not accepted even by the authorities themselves. Mohsen Hashemi, the head of the Tehran City Council, has rejected the official statistics on the coronavirus outbreak and said that the real number is much higher.
Kianoush Jahanpour, spokesman for the Ministry of Health, said in a report on Sunday that the number of infected people in the country has reached 82,211. According to statistics from the Ministry of Health of the Islamic Republic, 5,118 people have died from this respiratory disease in Iran so far.
Source: DW
