Iraq News Now

SAQQEZ, Iranian Kurdistan,— Around 70 inmates escaped Saqqez prison in Iranian Kurdistan (Rojhelat), western Iran, after a riot erupted on Friday evening, according the state run IRNA news outlet.

Iran has become the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic in the Middle East, which has spread fear across the country – particularly in Iran’s overcrowded prisons.

“Around 70 prisoners escaped from Saqqez prison an hour ago,” Kurdistan province prosecutor Mohammad Jabari told IRNA on Friday.

“Some have subsequently handed themselves in and others have been identified and security teams are trying to re-arrest them.”

The head of Kurdistan Province Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) told Mehr news the riot was likely sparked by fears of a coronavirus outbreak inside the prison.

“The prisoners who escaped have been identified and teams from the police and the IRGC intelligence have been deployed to arrest them,” Sayyid Sadeq Hossein said.

The Kurdish city of Saqqez, with a population of just over 220,000, is among Iran’s worst hit by the outbreak, with local news outlets reporting 122 coronavirus infections and around 50 deaths.

State media puts the local death toll at 18.

Judiciary chief Ebrahim Raisisaid recently claimed to have released 85,000 prisoners from Iran’s jails as a preventative measure to halt the spread of the virus.

While the authorities have released some political prisoners, many are still languishing in jail.

Human rights organizations have raised concerns about British, French, and American prisoners with dual Iranian nationality held by Iranian authorities – accused of spying.

Videos circulated by local media appear to show dozens of Saqqez prison inmates running in all directions, some of them wearing facemasks.

Hundreds of inmates in Tabriz prison are also on hunger strike to protest the decision not to grant them temporary release.

Almost 2,400 have died and more than 32,000 have been infected across the country.

The Paris-based Kurdistan Human Rights Network said Friday that a group of inmates at Tabriz prison set fire to their blankets in protest at the decision.

Prison guards allegedly responded with live ammunition, wounding seven inmates.

Health officials in Iran’s Kurdish city of Mahabad said Saturday the coronavirus outbreak has killed three people.

A 70-year-old, who had a pre-existing heart condition, became the latest to die at Imam Khomeini Hospital in Mahabad on Saturday after contracting the virus, Amir Behzad, head of Mahabad Health Directorate, told state media outlet IRNA.

There are 36 confirmed cases of the virus in the city, Behzad added.

Ever since its emergence in 1979 the Islamic regime imposed discriminatory rules and laws against the Kurds in all social, political and economic fields.

The Kurdish minority live mainly in Iranian Kurdistan (Rojhelat), the mainly in the west and north-west of the country. They experience discrimination in the enjoyment of their religious, economic and cultural rights.

Parents are banned from registering their babies with certain Kurdish names, and religious minorities that are mainly or partially Kurdish are targeted by measures designed to stigmatize and isolate them.

Kurds are also discriminated against in their access to employment, adequate housing and political rights, and so suffer entrenched poverty, which has further marginalized them.

Kurdish human rights defenders, community activists, and journalists often face arbitrary arrest and prosecution. Others – including some political activists – suffer torture, grossly unfair trials before Revolutionary Courts and, in some cases, the death penalty.

Estimate to over 12 million Kurds live in Iranian Kurdistan.

Many Kurdish armed groups including Komala took up arms to establish a semi-autonomous Kurdish regional entities or Kurdish federal states in Iran, similar to the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Iraq.

Copyright © 2020, respective author or news agency, Ekurd.net | rudaw.net

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