Concerns over repetition of Kahrizak tragedies in recent protests; Fashafoyeh Prison does not have the "necessary facilities" for "this number of detainees"
While unofficial reports indicate a high number of arrests in recent protests in Iran, the head of the Islamic Council of Rey County has also warned about the situation in Tehran's central prison, known as Fashafoyeh Prison, and the high number of detainees in this prison.
Hassan Khalilabadi, head of the Islamic Council of Rey County, said on Monday, December 25, that Fashafoyeh Prison does not have the "necessary facilities" and that "it is difficult to accommodate this number of detainees in this place."
Following the recent protests, the Islamic Republic has carried out widespread arrests in various cities, although there are no exact figures on the number of those arrested. Only some media outlets close to the IRGC had announced the number of those arrested as more than a thousand.
The warning from the head of the Islamic Council of Rey County about the situation in Fashafoyeh Prison comes at a time when the dismal state of the Islamic Republic's prisons and detention centers has been repeatedly reported in the media and has drawn international criticism.
The Kahrizak detention center incident in the aftermath of the 2009 presidential election, where at least three detainees were killed and many more were tortured. The suspicious death of Sina Ghanbari, a detainee of the January 2017 protests in the quarantine of Evin Prison, is another example. During the January protests, human rights activists warned of a repeat of a “second Kahrizak.”
But reports of the poor conditions of Fashafoyeh Prison have been published many times before. Last year, Rasoul Hoveida, a physiotherapist and prison dervish, released an audio file reporting the deaths of prisoners held in Fashafoyeh due to poor sanitary conditions and substandard medical care.
Alireza Shirmohammadi, a political prisoner who was murdered in Fashafoyeh Prison in June of this year, wrote in a joint letter with Barzan Mohammadi, another political prisoner, that there are no obvious and basic facilities in Fashafoyeh Prison and that many prisoners "have lost their lives due to the lack of these basic facilities."
However, Iran's Attorney General Mohammad Javad Montazeri has claimed in his recent statements that "all of these detainees" in recent Iranian protests "have expressed satisfaction with the conditions of their prison and detention," an issue that is inconsistent with the description of the conditions in Fashafoyeh Prison by the prisoners and even the head of the Rey County Council.
Iran has witnessed widespread protests against the Islamic Republic in the past week. A day after the protests began, the Islamic Republic almost completely shut down the internet on Saturday night, November 15, and US State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus responded to the Iranian regime’s move by saying, “We condemn the efforts to shut down the internet. Let them [the people] have their say!”
On Tuesday, November 19, Amnesty International announced that at least 115 people have been killed by agents of the Islamic Republic of Iran during recent protests in Iran.
President Donald Trump, in his first public statement on the protests in Iran, said on Thursday, November 20, that Iran has become so unstable that the regime has shut down the entire internet system so that the good people of Iran cannot speak out about the extreme violence that is taking place inside that country.
The White House issued a statement on Sunday evening, November 16, in support of the protesting people in Iran, stating that the United States condemns the use of deadly force and severe restrictions on communications against demonstrators.
In his first response to the widespread protests in Iran, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo wrote to the Iranian people on Saturday, November 15, "The United States stands with you."
The United States says the Islamic Republic is spending its country's wealth on supporting terrorist groups and destabilizing the Middle East instead of its people.
The United States has also repeatedly condemned institutionalized financial corruption and the plundering of Iran's God-given assets by the regime's affiliates, citing them as the main causes of Iran's economic and financial problems. Not long ago, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tweeted about the Islamic Republic's officials that they were involved in corruption instead of helping the people.
Source: Voice of America
