Deputy Minister of Judiciary: 3,800 Iranians are imprisoned abroad

The Deputy Minister for International Affairs of the Iranian Judiciary announced that 3,800 Iranians are imprisoned abroad, and said that 2,000 of them are in Türkiye.

Kazem Gharibabadi announced on Monday, February 15, that some Iranians are imprisoned abroad for crimes, and some are imprisoned "unjustly or under false political pretexts, including circumventing sanctions," and that it is essential to support them.

He pointed to the "large number of Iranian drug prisoners" abroad.

Gharibabadi's statements about the existence of 3,800 Iranians imprisoned abroad come at a time when Hossein Panahi-Azar, Deputy for Parliamentary Affairs and Iranians in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Hassan Rouhani government, had announced on June 21, 2018, that the number of Iranian prisoners abroad was 2,916, a large portion of whom were in Turkish prisons.

Thus, over the past three years, despite the borders being closed due to the coronavirus outbreak, the number of Iranian prisoners abroad has increased by almost a third.

The 31% increase in the number of Iranian prisoners abroad comes at a time when many reports have been published this year about the extradition of dozens of Iranian prisoners abroad, including from the Republic of Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, and the Kurdistan Region.

There are also 2,000 Iranians imprisoned in Turkey, while the country's latest official statistics, published on November 23 last year, less than two months ago, show that the total number of foreign prisoners in the country is about 10,209, which is an increase of about 20 percent compared to 2018.

Thus, one-fifth of all foreign prisoners in Türkiye are Iranian citizens.

Source: Radio Farda