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Fires and clashes at Iran’s Evin prison amid Mahsa Amini protests

Fires and clashes at Tehran’s infamous Evin prison on Saturday night marked the fifth week of protests sparked by the death of Martha Amini in custody.

The facility in northern Tehran is notorious for torture of political prisoners and also houses foreign detainees. Hundreds of people who were reportedly detained during demonstrations over Amini’s death were sent there.

1500tasvir’s social media channel, which monitors protests and police violations, said on Twitter that “fires are spreading in Evin Prison,” and that “explosions were heard” from the facility.

Amini, 22, died on Sept. 16, three days after falling into a coma after being arrested by Iran’s notorious morality police for allegedly violating the Islamic Republic’s strict dress code for women. .

“The situation is now fully under control,” IRNA news agency said, adding that at least eight people were injured.

Evin Prison houses foreign inmates, including French-Iranian scholar Fariba Adelka and U.S. citizen Siamak Namazi, whose families said this week after he was temporarily released. said to have been detained.

They called on the Iranian authorities to give him an “immediate” means of contacting his family and to release him on furlough because “it is clear that he is not safe in Evin Prison.”

Award-winning dissident Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi and reformist politician Mostafa Tajzadeh are also reportedly detained in Evin.

“If, God forbid, political prisoners die, this will be an event of the same magnitude as the Cinema Rex fire in Abadan in August 1978, which hastened the Shah’s downfall.”

On the eve of Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, about 400 people were killed in an arson attack on a closed cinema.

Angry demonstrators took to the streets again across Iran on Saturday despite internet cuts.

“Guns, tanks, fireworks. A mullah must get lost,” chanted women without hijabs at a rally at Tehran’s Shariati Technical College in a video widely shared online. .

A video shared on Twitter showed protesters pouring into the streets of the northwestern city of Ardabil, despite what online monitor NetBlocks called a “significant disruption of internet traffic.” I was.

On Saturday, mass protests were called under the tagline, “It’s the beginning of the end!”

– “Riot” –

The unrest continued despite what Amnesty International called a “relentless and brutal crackdown” involving “an all-out attack on child protesters”, leading to the deaths of at least 23 minors. .

The crackdown has prompted international condemnation and sanctions against Iran from Britain, Canada and the United States.

Iran’s supreme leader has accused the country’s enemies, including the United States and Israel, of fomenting “riots”.

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first published as Fires and clashes at Iran’s Evin prison amid Mahsa Amini protests

Fires and clashes at Iran’s Evin prison amid Mahsa Amini protests

Source link Fires and clashes at Iran’s Evin prison amid Mahsa Amini protests

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