CHRI:

The Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) is extremely concerned by reports that prisoners in Iran lack access to medicines as well as hygiene and sanitary products amid a rapidly rising death toll from a coronavirus outbreak in the country.

“We’re receiving disturbing reports that Iranian authorities are neglecting their domestic and international legal obligations to protect prisoners from contracting COVID-19 during this health crisis,” said CHRI Executive Director Hadi Ghaemi.

“Prison populations are more susceptible to viral outbreaks than the general population because of their confined living conditions,” he added. “Iranian authorities should ensure the safety and wellbeing of all prisoners and exhaust all means of protecting this vulnerable population.”

Tehran’s Evin Prison Has “Run Out” of Medicines and Sanitary Products

Wards in Tehran’s Evin Prison have “run out” of medicines, sanitary, and hygiene supplies, the relatives of two dual national prisoners held there told CHRI.

Reports have meanwhile surfaced of a prisoner held elsewhere in the city dying from “flu-like” symptoms.

On February 28, the Iran Metropolitan News Agency reported that “Hamidreza,” a 44-year-old man in the Greater Tehran Central Penitentiary (GTCP), had died from “flu-like symptoms of the mysterious coronavirus… a few days after he started to cough.”

“Investigations are continuing to determine the cause of the man’s death,” added the report.

An Iranian-born British charity worker who has been imprisoned in Evin Prison’s Women’s Ward since 2016, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, has meanwhile come down with a “sore throat” and “cold sweat” as others in her ward have also been exhibiting cold symptoms, her husband Richard Ratcliffe told CHRI.

“The biggest shock for me is that in the women’s ward they have run out of cleaning products—no disinfectant, no bleach, no sanitary gel,” Ratcliffe told CHRI on February 27, 2020.

“The prison clinic has no medication,” he added. “The guards have disinfectant for themselves, but the prisoners have none.”

Ratcliffe explained that supplies are supposed to be distributed every month but “they have run out and there is no budget to buy more, and no stock in the prison shop outside of washing-up liquid. Similarly, the prison clinic seems to have run out of medication.”

The wife of imprisoned Iranian-born British national Anoosheh Ashoori, a retired engineer, said her husband’s Ward 7 in Evin Prison also lacked crucial medical and sanitary supplies.

“My husband said that there are no masks or sanitizers available or basic medicines such as paracetamol or cold tablets,” Sherry Izadi told CHRI on February 28.

Izadi said prisoners held there had not been informed about how to protect themselves and “haven’t had access to any doctors for about 6 weeks.”

She added that the inmates in Ward 7 had implemented their own set of rules and measures to protect themselves from contracting the virus and that they currently have access to some basic cleaning supplies such as bleach and dishwasher access.

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