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Iran has temporarily released 85,000 prisoners with 10,000 more slated to receive pardons, as fears mount the new coronavirus could sweep through the country's overcrowded prisons.
Key points:
- Kylie Moore-Gilbert was not reported among the thousands released on Tuesday
- A British-Iranian aid worker and a US Navy veteran have received furlough
- Iran had 189,500 people in prison in January according to a UN report
But Australian academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert, who has been in jail in Tehran, was not among those released.
As of Friday morning, Iran had almost 1,300 confirmed deaths and more than 18,400 infections of COVID-19, and a doctor on Iranian state-run TV warned more than 3 million people could die across the country if isolation measures were not strictly adhered to.
Reports from inside Iran's prisons said dozens of inmates had persistent coughs and high fevers — symptoms of coronavirus — but there were no testing kits available.
While Dr Moore-Gilbert was not reported among those released on Tuesday, British-Iranian aid worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and a US Navy veteran were among those who received furlough.
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei will also pardon 10,000 additional prisoners in honour of the Iranian new year on Friday, state TV reported.
"Those who will be pardoned will not return to jail … almost half of those security-related prisoners will be pardoned as well," judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili told state TV on Wednesday.
On Tuesday, Mr Esmaili said Iran had temporarily freed about 85,000 people, including political prisoners, in response to the coronavirus epidemic.
"A large number of prisoners who have been temporarily freed do not need to return to jail after the leader's pardon," Mr Esmaili said, adding that it was "unprecedented" for "security-related prisoners" to receive pardons.
Mr Esmaili did not say if those pardoned would include Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe or US Navy veteran Michael White, imprisoned more than a year ago for insulting Iran's supreme leader.
Iran had 189,500 people in prison, according to a UN report submitted to the Human Rights Council in January.
Among them are believed to be hundreds who were arrested during or after anti-government protests in November.
The coronavirus outbreak has prompted calls from the UN and the US for political prisoners, including dozens of dual nationals and foreigners, to be released from Iran's overcrowded cells.
Washington has warned that it will hold the Iranian Government directly responsible for any American deaths in prison.
'Grave risks to Kylie's health'
Dr Moore-Gilbert, a University of Melbourne lecturer, has been held in the notorious Evin prison in Tehran since October 2018, serving 10 years for espionage.
Human Right Watch Australia director Elaine Pearson said she had heard concerning reports of prisoners in Evin testing positive for coronavirus.
"I think it's because of these concerns and the difficulty in providing medical care to prisoners that Iran has released tens of thousands of prisoners on furlough," she told the ABC.
Ms Pearson described conditions in Iranian prisons as "notoriously bad with poor hygiene, sanitation and overcrowding".
"There are grave risks to Kylie's health if she remains in Evin prison. We already know she has suffered health problems and there's a lack of sufficient medical care in prison," she said.
"Prison is no place to be when there is a pandemic."
Ms Pearson said it was not clear why Dr Moore-Gilbert had not also been released on furlough along with other foreign political prisoners.
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"Like other political prisoners, Kylie should never have been imprisoned in the first place," she said.
"Clearly the Australian Government needs to do more to press for her release.
"The Australian Government needs to act quickly to ensure Kylie can get home before things get worse."
Zaghari-Ratcliffe under 'house arrest' in Tehran
Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a project manager with the Thomson Reuters Foundation who was also being held in Evin Prison, had earlier warned she was in danger of contracting the new coronavirus under inadequate prison conditions.
The 41-year-old was subsequently tested and found not to have the virus, but was among those released temporarily on Tuesday.
Her husband Richard Ratcliff said she was required to wear an ankle tag, which her parents "hired from the authorities", and that her movements were restricted to 300 metres from her parents' home in west Tehran.
"This makes her release more comparable to house arrest than the standard furlough arrangement that has been granted to other prisoners in Evin this week," he said on Tuesday.
Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe was arrested in April 2016 at a Tehran airport as she was heading back to Britain with her daughter after a family visit.
She was sentenced to five years in jail after being convicted of plotting to overthrow Iran's clerical establishment.
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British Prime Minister Boris Johnson came under fire for later saying, "she was simply teaching people journalism, as I understand it", which appeared to undermine her insistence that she was on holiday.
He later apologised for his "slip of the tongue", but Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe was hauled back in front of an Iranian court to face fresh allegations, however, her sentence was not extended.
British Foreign Minister Dominic Raab expressed relief over Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe in a statement on Wednesday.
"While this is a welcome step, we urge the Government now to release all UK dual nationals arbitrarily detained in Iran, and enable them to return to their families in the UK," he said.
US citizen Mr White's release was also conditional upon him staying in Iran.
Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards have arrested dozens of dual nationals and foreigners over recent years, including citizens of the US, Britain, Canada, Australia, Austria, France, Sweden, the Netherlands and Lebanon.
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Tehran denies it holds people on political grounds, and has mainly accused foreign prisoners of espionage.
Rights activists have accused Iran of arresting a number of dual nationals to try to win concessions from other countries — a charge the Islamic Republic has regularly dismissed.
Tehran has called for the release of several dozen Iranians held in US prisons, mostly for violating sanctions imposed on Iran over its nuclear program.
Topics: prisons-and-punishment, law-crime-and-justice, diseases-and-disorders, infectious-diseases-other, respiratory-diseases, world-politics, health, iran-islamic-republic-of, united-states, united-kingdom, australia
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