Monday 21 April 2014

Prisoners’ kin stage protest outside parliament

TEHRAN: Families of Iranian prisoners charged with political offences demonstrated outside parliament in Tehran on Sunday to protest at what they said was violent treatment of their relatives at the Evin prison, the Iranian Students’ News Agency reported.

Family members holding pictures of the prisoners said more than 20 of their relatives were hurt in clashes with security guards on April 17, according to Kaleme, a website linked to opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi.

Moderate parliamentarian Ali Mottahari, a strong opponent of Ahmadinejad, who was succeeded as president by centrist Hassan Rouhani in elections last year, attended Sunday’s demonstration and said he would raise the issue in parliament.

“These families asked for our help and we will try our best to help them and we will raise this issue in the parliament,” ISNA quoted Mottahari as saying.

The disturbances at the prison’s so-called Ward 350 – where detainees facing political charges are normally held – began after prisoners refused to leave their cells during a routine security check, Kaleme has said.

Mottahari, referring to the 2009 protests, said: “It wasn’t necessary to imprison people for six to eight years because of one demonstration. If we had solved this issue sooner, we wouldn’t be here today.”

ISNA cited the families as saying that they had been denied visitation rights this week. Justice Minister Mostafa Pourmohammadi downplayed the April17 disturbances, saying “nothing of note” had happened.

Reuters




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