The fire at Tehran’s Evin prison, according to human rights activist Atena Daemi and Human Rights Activist 1500tasvir

Tasnim said on Monday the death toll from the fire at Tehran’s Evin prison had risen to eight. Citing Iranian authorities, earlier reports by state-run news agency IRNA said dozens of others were injured after prisoners set fire to a warehouse.

The facility is notorious for housing political prisoners who have been held in the country, which has witnessed large scale protests against the Islamic regime.

Atena Daemi, a human rights activist, said tear gas was fired by security officials while she was in Evin.

The wife of jailed Iranian filmmakers told a radio station that she received a phone call from her husband stating that he and his opponent were in good health.

The worst hours of her life were the hours after the fire broke out, when she got a call from her husband.

Activist group 1500tasvir reported earlier that, in videos posted on social media, gunshots were heard and Iranian special forces were seen heading to the area where the prison is believed to be located.

Inmates on Ward 8 have no water, gas or bread and 45 of them were moved to an unknown place. Everyone is fine but they are worried about being moved to other prisons, or being held in solitary confinement.

Many inmates had been transferred to Rajaei Shahr prison, about 20 kilometers west (12 miles) of Tehran, Mostafa Nili, a lawyer who represents a number of prisoners, said on Twitter. A bus takes prisoners away from Evin.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/17/middleeast/iran-evin-prison-fire-survivors-guards-tear-gas-intl-hnk/index.html

Tehran’s punishment for murdering a prisoner allegedly convicted of a crime against public order, peace and order in the country’s nationwide protests

“She told me she didn’t know what had happened at Evin last night but said that she heard the terrifying sounds and thought something terrible happened,” Hosein said his wife told him, adding she was doing well.

The notorious section of the prison called Section 209 is where Hamedi is being held and it has no information about other areas.

According to the lawyer for the Namazi family, Siamak was safe after returning to prison on Wednesday after being briefly released on a holiday.

Speaking earlier to state broadcaster IRIB, Tehran’s prosecutor Ali Salehi said the “conflict” at the prison was not linked to the protests that have swept the country following the death of a young woman in police custody.

The death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini was linked to the authorities’ suspicion that she did not wear her hijab properly. Iranian authorities have since unleashed a brutal and deadly crackdown on demonstrators, who have united around a range of grievances with the country’s authoritarian regime.

Iran is the most executed nation in the world. It typically executes prisoners by hanging. Already, Amnesty International said it obtained a document signed by one senior Iranian police commander asking an execution for one prisoner be “completed ‘in the shortest possible time’ and that his death sentence be carried out in public as ‘a heart-warming gesture towards the security forces.’”

A special session of the UN Human Rights Council should be held to create a “UN investigative and accountability mechanism on Iran government and religious authorities,” Callamard said in a tweet Sunday, citing “far too many crimes against the Iranian people.”

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iran said Thursday it executed a prisoner convicted for a crime allegedly committed during the country’s ongoing nationwide protests, the first such death penalty carried out by Tehran.

According to state news agency IRNA, they were convicted of disturbing public order and peace, community and colluding to commit a crime against national security, war and corruption on Earth.

Five others who took part in the protests received sentences of five to 10 years in prison, convicted of “collusion to commit a crime against national security and disturbance of public peace and order.”

IRNA added that these decisions are preliminary and can be appealed. The news agency did not name the protester who received a death sentence, and did not give details on when or where the crime was committed.

As of November, the Iranian authorities were looking for the death penalty for at least 21 people connected to the protests.

The group said in an update on its death toll that its published number was an “absolute minimum”, as it included 43 children and 25 women.

CNN is unable to verify the number of people facing execution in Iran and the latest arrest figures or death tolls from the protests, as they are not available to anyone outside the Iranian government.

Despite the threat of arrests – and harsher punishments for those involved – Iranian celebrities and athletes have stepped forward to support the anti-government protests in recent weeks.

Iran Human Rights, a non-profit rights organization which has members inside and outside the country, has called for a strong international response to the execution.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran said Monday it executed its second prisoner detained amid the nationwide protests now challenging the country’s theocracy, airing footage on state television it claimed showed him stabbing a man to death and running away.

The protester is named by both Mizan Online and Tasmin news agency. He was reportedly convicted of “waging war against God” for stabbing a member of the Basij paramilitary force at a protest in Tehran on September 23.

Shekari was hanged on Thursday morning after being sentenced to death in October. It was the first time an execution was reported by the state media.

“His execution must be met with the strongest possible terms and international reactions. Otherwise, we will be facing daily executions of protesters who are protesting for their fundamental human rights,” the group’s director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam told CNN.

The former leader said that the government must listen to the protesters before it is too late in an announcement ahead of Students’ Day.

Shekari was killed by a security officer in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, with U.S. sanctions for alleged sexual violence against women in prisons

In an interview on Tuesday, a prominent Iranian Sunni cleric called on the judiciary to investigate and prosecute abuses of women in prisons.

Her death touched a nerve in the Islamic Republic, with prominent public figures coming out in support of the movement, including top Iranian actor Taraneh Alidoosti. A range of grievances have arisen from the protests.

Since the demonstrations began, authorities have unleashed a deadly crackdown, with reports of forced detentions and physical abuse being used to target the country’s Kurdish minority group.

In a recent CNN investigation, covert testimony revealed sexual violence against protesters, including boys, in Iran’s detention centers since the start of the unrest.

Meanwhile, Iran’s Supreme Leader has praised the Basij – a wing of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard – for its role in the crackdown, describing the protest movement as “rioters” and “thugs” backed by foreign forces.

At least a dozen people have been sentenced to death for their involvement in the demonstrations and activists warn that more could be executed in the near future.

The Mizan report said that Shekari claimed he had been offered money by someone to attack the security forces. Iran’s government has long accused foreign countries of inciting the unrest in the country, rather than Iranians angry with the country’s collapse and other troubles.

Mizan news agency said she was convicted in Tehran’s Revolutionary Court, which has been criticized for not allowing trial witnesses to pick their own lawyers or see the evidence against them.

After he was executed, Iran’s state television aired a heavily edited package of the courtroom and parts of her trial.

Salavati faces U.S. sanctions for overseeing cases “in which journalists, attorneys, political activists and members of Iran’s ethnic and religious minority groups were penalized for exercising their freedom of expression and assembly and sentenced to lengthy prison terms, lashes and even execution,” according to the U.S. Treasury.

Iran executed a man less than a month after he was accused of killing two security officials, showing how quickly the government carries out death sentences for those held during the protests.

Iran’s Mizan news agency is under the auspices of the country’s judiciary, and is believed to have reported on the deaths of two security force members.

State TV aired footage showing a man chasing another around a street corner, and standing over him and murdering him after he fell against a motorbike. The assailant, which state TV alleged was Rahnavard, then fled.

The Mizan report identified the dead as “student” Basij, paramilitary volunteers under Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. The Basij (ba-SEEJ’) have deployed in major cities, attacking and detaining protesters, who in many cases have fought back.

Rahnavard had been convicted on the charge of “moharebeh,” a Farsi word meaning “waging war against God.” That charge has been levied against others in the decades since 1979 and carries the death penalty.

Iran has a capital, Tehran, and a holy city of the Shiite faith, Mashhad. Activists say Mashhad has seen strikes, shops closed and demonstrations amid the unrest that began over the Sept. 16 death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman who had been detained by Iran’s morality police.

Iran executed the first prisoner during the demonstrations. Amid the unrest, Iran has seen its rial currency drop to new lows against the U.S. dollar.