NCRI

Iran’s Regime Executing Another Prisoner Debunks Its Claims of Willingness or Efforts in Fighting COVID-19

Mahmoud Hakamian
Iran’s Regime Executing Another Prisoner Debunks Its Claims of Willingness or Efforts in Fighting COVID-19
Shayan Saeedpour

The mullahs’ regime executed Shayan Saeedpour, who was juvenile at the time of his arrest, for participating collective escape of prisoners in Saqqez prison, northwest Iran. His execution once again debunks the regime’s claims of willingness to help people amid coronavirus outbreak and its efforts to depict sanctions for the country’s crisis.   

In this regard, Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), said: The mullahs’ regime has brought nothing but suppression and execution. To intimidate and terrorize the public and to contain the situation, it has resorted to executing prisoners instead of releasing them.

Mrs. Rajavi again urged the international community, especially the United Nations Secretary-General, the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Human Rights Council, the relevant UN rapporteurs, and other human rights organizations to intervene immediately to stop the executions, secure the release of the prisoners, and prevent a major humanitarian catastrophe in prisons.  

On April 11, the Iranian regime executed Mostafa Salimi, another prisoner who had escaped during the Saqqez prison rebellion.

On Friday, March 27, 2020, prisoners in the Saqqez Prison in Kurdistan rebelled against the regime’s refusal to release them amid the Coronavirus outbreak. According to the regime’s state-run Fars News agency, 80 prisoners managed to escape after clashes with the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) and prison guards.  

Since the coronavirus outbreak, the Iranian regime has initiated a campaign of domestic cover-up and inaction along with an international effort to frame the U.S. as the reason behind the high coronavirus mortality rate in Iran.   

Yet, the regime’s approach toward the prisoners debunks mullahs’ claims and suggests that coronavirus crisis for the regime is rather a security threat. There have been at least 13 prison riots across Iran since the coronavirus epidemic. Iranian prisons don’t have the minimum hygienic facilities and equipment, prisoners, whether infected or not, are kept in the same cells and prisons are highly populated.    

These riots across Iran reject the regime’s claims of having released over 80 thousand prisoners. In addition, the continuation of prison breaks and prisoners’ rebellions, despite the regime’s utmost readiness and mobilization after the first and second cases, shows that the regime’s control and administration system in the prisons has been shaken. For the mullahs’ regime which is based on domestic oppression and export of terrorism abroad, this is rather an existential threat, in line with the Iran protests, which showed the Iranian people’s willingness to overthrow the regime.   

Over 12,000 protesters were arrested in November Iran protests, some have contracted COVID-19 but none have been released. Killing prisoners and not releasing them along with forcing people back to work amid the coronavirus, confirms that the regime intends to use the coronavirus to oppress the Iranian society rather than controlling the virus.   

Yet, the destabilization of the regime’s control of prisons demonstrates the depth of its instability and desperation in controlling Iran’s explosive society, which is in a bigger de facto prison. The factors that forced the prisoners to risk their lives and confront armed forces are the same for ordinary people. These factors, including maximum economic pressure and oppression along with the deadly coronavirus, spread by the mullahs’ regime, have made the Iranian society explosive.  

Now the regime’s officials, are fearing the post-coronavirus situation and the emerging uprising.   

On Monday, the state-run Hamdeli daily wrote that the “Islamic Republic must prepare for tougher crisis and possibly violent and extensive protests and general discontent.”  

Also, on Monday, the state-run Resalat daily wrote: Coronavirus impacts the more deprived sectors of society … The bankruptcy of low-income families has already started, and gap and post Coronavirus inequality will aggravate, leading to new inequality and gaps… New people will join the already deprived people. Finally, development, security, and human and social resources will dramatically plummet.   

The facts above confirm Mrs. Maryam Rajavi saying that “Today, not only the freedom of the people of Iran, but their very lives and health, and the country’s economy and existence depends on the overthrow of the clerical regime.”   

 

Exit mobile version