TEHRAN: Prisoners in southern Iran broke cameras and caused other damage during a riot, state media reported Monday, the latest in a series of violent prison disturbances in the country, which is battling the most severe coronavirus outbreak in the Middle East.
Iran had temporarily released around 100,000 prisoners as part of measures taken to contain the pandemic, leaving an estimated 50,000 people behind bars, including violent offenders and so-called “security cases,” often dual nationals and others with Western ties.
Families of detainees and Western nations say Iran is holding those prisoners for political reasons or to use them as bargaining chips in negotiations.
The state-run IRNA news agency quoted Gov. Enayatollah Rahimi of the southern Fars province as saying a riot broke out at Adel Abad Prison, the main lockup in the city of Shiraz. Rahimi said prisoners broke cameras and caused other damage in two sections housing violent criminals. No one was wounded and no one escaped.
IRNA reported Friday that 70 inmates had escaped Saqqez Prison in Iran’s western Kurdistan province. Prisoners beat guards during the chaos, a local prosecutor said. Several inmates later returned on their own to the prison.
Since the beginning of the year, riots have broken out in prisons in Aligudarz, Hamedan and Tabriz as well, with some prisoners escaping, IRNA reported.
Iran has reported more than 38,000 infections and 2,640 deaths from COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus.
The virus causes mild symptoms, including fever and cough, in most patients, who recover within a few weeks. But it is highly contagious and can be spread by people showing no symptoms. It can also cause severe illness and death, particularly in older patients or those with underlying health problems.
The virus has infected more than 720,000 people worldwide, causing more than 34,000 deaths, according to data gathered by Johns Hopkins University. More than 150,000 have recovered.
Prisoners riot in Iran, region’s worst COVID-19 outbreak
https://arab.news/n8zk7
Prisoners riot in Iran, region’s worst COVID-19 outbreak
- Iran had temporarily released around 100,000 prisoners as part of measures taken to contain the pandemic
- Prisoners broke cameras and caused other damage in two sections housing violent criminals
Israeli measures in West Bank seek to ‘assassinate Palestinian state’: Saudi UN envoy
- Kingdom ‘strongly condemns decision to convert lands to state property,’ Abdulaziz Alwasil tells Security Council
- ‘There’s no doubt that these violations undermine efforts to achieve peace and stability in the region’
NEW YORK: Saudi Arabia on Wednesday strongly condemned Israel’s “unlawful coercive measures” in the occupied West Bank, telling the UN Security Council that the actions amount to an attempt to “assassinate the Palestinian state” and undermine prospects for peace.
Speaking at a ministerial-level council meeting chaired by British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper, Saudi Arabia’s UN Ambassador Abdulaziz Alwasil said Riyadh rejects Israeli moves to expand settlements, seize land and alter the status of the Occupied Territories.
Israeli authorities “continue to gravely violate the rights of the Palestinian people” in the West Bank, he said.
“We meet today, more than two years after the Israeli aggression against the Gaza Strip, and at a moment where we also witness a new chapter of suffering and violations committed by the Israeli occupation,” Alwasil added.
Recent coercive measures aimed at imposing “Israeli dominance over the West Bank, expanding settlement activity, escalating settlers terrorism, practicing forced displacement against the Palestinian people and seizing their land … reflects Israel’s persistence in its attempt to assassinate the Palestinian state,” he said.
Israel’s adherence to a ceasefire agreement and halting its “illegal policies and seizure of land” have become “urgent matters that can’t be further delayed,” Alwasil added, calling for an end to “ongoing violations associated with annexation of lands belonging to unarmed Palestinians in the West Bank.”
Alwasil said 85 states have denounced the measures, and Saudi Arabia “strongly condemns the decision of the Israeli occupying authorities to convert lands in the West Bank to what it calls state property as part of schemes that aim to impose a new legal and administrative reality in the occupied West Bank.”
He added: “There’s no doubt that these violations undermine efforts to achieve peace and stability in the region.”
Alwasil reiterated that “Israel has no sovereignty” over the Occupied Territories, and expressed Riyadh’s “absolute rejection of these illegal measures which constitute a grave violation of international law, particularly Security Council resolution 2334.”
He added that “these actions are an aggression on the inherent right of the brotherly Palestinian people to establish their independent state on the June 4, 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital,” and that the measures aim to “alter the demographic composition and the character and the status” of the Occupied Territories.
He cited the 2024 advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice, saying it is “clear and explicit” in affirming that “Israel’s policies and practices in the occupied Palestinian territory and its continued presence there is considered unlawful.”
He added: “It stressed that Israeli occupation must end and that it is invalid to annex occupied Palestinian territories.”
Alwasil also condemned the seizure and demolition of a compound belonging to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East in East Jerusalem and the cutting of electricity to its facilities, including schools and health centers.
“This is an unprecedented violation of international humanitarian law aimed at undermining the status of Palestinian refugees” in the Occupied Territories, he said.
With the advent of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, he called for protecting humanitarian organizations and ensuring that they can carry out their duties “without hindrance.”
He said: “We strongly condemn practices that target humanitarian workers throughout the Palestinian territories. UNRWA isn’t a terrorist organization, and such claims are unacceptable.”
Alwasil added: “The international community must come together to provide protection for UNRWA under international humanitarian law.”
He said that in response to an invitation from US President Donald Trump, Saudi Arabia will “participate constructively and actively” in an inaugural meeting of the Board of Peace scheduled for Thursday in Washington, DC.
“We value the efforts of President Trump and his administration and the attention that they have devoted to ending the war and achieving peace in the Gaza Strip,” Alwasil added.
The Kingdom has signed the instrument of accession to the Board of Peace “in support of its efforts as a transitional body in accordance with a comprehensive plan to end the conflict in Gaza that was adopted by the Security Council by virtue of resolution 2803,” he said.
“This track aims to establish a permanent ceasefire, support the reconstruction of Gaza, and push forth a just and lasting peace based on the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination and the establishment of their independent state.”
Alwasil called for opening crossings to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza and enabling “Palestinian and international committees to administer” the enclave “with no conditions to ensure the management of the daily affairs” of its population while preserving “the institutional and geographic linkages between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in a manner that would guarantee the unity of Palestinian land.”
Riyadh rejects “any attempt to divide or undermine the integrity of Palestinian lands,” he said. “The only path to achieving a just and comprehensive peace requires establishing a permanent ceasefire, preventing displacement and annexation, ensuring Israel’s full withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, and supporting the reconstruction.”
