Miscellaneous
Season 2, Episode 5 - The COVID-19 Crisis & Prisons in Iran - FLD Intro: 00:00 - 02:02 - Shirin Ebadi, Nobel Prize Winner & Lawyer: 02:03 - 05:03 - Roya Boroumand, Executive DIrector, AB Center: 05:03 - 20:44 (including testimonies from Iranian prisoners) This episode of Rights on the Line focuses on the prison situation in Iran during the COVID-19 pandemic, and is a collaboration between Front Line Defenders and the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for Human Rights in Iran, a non-governmental non-profit organization dedicated to the promotion of human rights and democracy in Iran. In its documentation of human rights defenders cases in Iran, Front Line Defenders has often drawn attention to the poor health conditions in the prisons. The Abdorrahman Boroumand Center has also documented these conditions, most recently in its April 2020 report, “COVID-19 Fear in Iran’s Prisons”, available on the Center’s website, www.iranrights.org The first COVID-19 cases were reported in Iran on February 19th in Qom. A month later, the annual Persian New Year celebrations of Nowruz meant that Iranians traveled extensively throughout the country as the government did not impose social distancing policies. As a result of the government’s response, compounded by sanctions and a faltering economy, Iran today is one of the global epicenters of the pandemic. As of May 11, there are almost 110,000 cases and over 6,500 dead according to official figures. Iran is among the 10 most affected countries both in terms of number of cases and number of deaths per 100,000. The government has released approximately 100,000 prisoners in an effort to improve overcrowding at prisons, but poor conditions remain. And notably, imprisoned human rights defenders have almost entirely been excluded from furlough or release. In fact, in recent weeks, Front Line Defenders has reported on cases of HRDs being summoned to report to prison to start serving prison sentences, including Shapour Ehsanirad, Nahid Khodajo and Soha Mortezaei. Sam Rajabi, who is imprisoned in the notorious Evin Prison, was returned to prison despite having tested positive at a civic hospital while receiving treatment for another serious health condition. And long-term cases, Atena Daemi, Narges Mohammadi and Nasrin Sotoudeh remain imprisoned.