Australian Supporters of Democracy in Iran, in a letter to Michelle Bachelet, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), while expressing solidarity with the coronavirus victims in Iran, which according to the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) have surpassed 12,400, urged the UN to put pressure on the Iranian regime in order to release all prisoners, particularly political prisoners, as the disease continues to spread across Iran because of the regime’s inaction and cover-up.
The text of this letter is below:
March 25, 2020,
Hon Michelle Bachelet
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) Palais des Nations CH-1211 Geneva 10, Switzerland
Urgent call for release of political prisoners in Iran
Dear High Commissioner,
According to the Peoples Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI / MEK) on March 24, 2020, the number of fatalities from the COVID-19 pandemic in 219 cities across Iran had risen to more than 10,900. On March 23, the Iranian Health Ministry representative acknowledged that “the death toll in Tehran is growing by 13%”. He said that in the last 24 hours, 1,762 people have been infected with the Coronavirus, the highest since the beginning.
Alireza Zali, head of the Coronavirus Combat Headquarters in Tehran, also said, “The statistics of those contracting the virus and the death toll are beyond previous estimates and require revising the narrative.”
This is a huge catastrophe for the people of Iran, largely hidden from the international community, and it is being used to eliminate political prisoners detained in mass arrests since November 15 last year, and since December 2017.
In a letter to the Parliament Speaker, Parliament Deputy Abdul Karim Hosseinzadeh wrote, “Iran is only a few steps away from a historic and humanitarian catastrophe. Deputies like me are tired of begging for quarantine and other necessary actions; we are hopeless that any decisive action will be taken. Before it is too late, let’s pass an urgent bill to immediately close everything down in the country for a month, … to protect our countrymen from the deadly Coronavirus.”
Amid this, the Iran government expelled a nine-specialist team from Doctors Without Borders from a field hospital in Isfahan, after first agreeing that they should come to assist.
Prisoners in general have been agitating against the pandemic. On March 20, 2020, prisoners at the Aligudarz Central Prison, who were in danger of being exposed to the Coronavirus, rebelled and disarmed some of the prison officials, and tried to escape.
