Iran: Prison riot in Tabriz, IRGC opens fire & wounds prisoners

Reporting by PMOI/MEK 

Iran, March 27, 2020—Inmates of wards 7 and 9 in a prison of Tabriz, northwest Iran, facing the threat of being infected with coronavirus, launched a riot on Thursday afternoon local time, March 26. Despite all its state media propaganda and brouhaha amid the spread of COVID-19 in prisons across the country, the mullahs’ regime is refusing to even temporarily release its inmates and is in fact sending new prisoners into already crowded prisons across the country.

Units of the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) and other oppressive forces stationed at the Tabriz prison opened fire on the inmates, leaving a number of the prisoners wounded. Smoke was seen rising to the sky from inside the prison and sounds of gunfire and ambulances were heard in areas adjacent to the facility. Authorities dispatched a large number of security forces to the facility.

While the number of COVID-19 victims in Iran is escalating exponentially, various inmates in different jails throughout Iran are also infected with this illness. Six inmates have already lost their lives in the Greater Tehran Prison (Fashafuyeh), which lacks even basic hygiene necessities. Inmates suffering from coronavirus are not being separated from others in this facility.

In Ghezel Hesar Prison of Karaj, west of Tehran, a number of inmates have been infected with COVID-19 and some have even lost their lives. The prisons of Gohardasht and Evin, along with the women’s prison of Qarchak, and dozens of other large and small jails in Tehran and Alborz provinces are under the same conditions. The situation in prisons of other provinces are reported as very dire. Most of Iran’s prisons are filled with twice or three times the number of their capacity.

Iranian opposition President Maryam Rajavi, head of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), described the death of inmates in the Greater Tehran Prison as a chain reaction in deaths and a horrific crime against humanity by the mullahs’ regime as authorities continue to refuse to release inmates. Madam Rajavi once again called on the international community to intervene immediately for the release of prisoners, especially political prisoners, and prevent the loss of thousands of lives in jails checkered across Iran.