GENEVA: The UN voiced outrage Friday over the death of a juvenile offender in Iran following reported beatings by guards after prisoners protested seeking their release due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The United Nations rights office said it had received information that Daniel Zeinolabedini died after suffering beatings following a riot in Mahabad prison in Iran’s West Azerbaijan Province on March 28.
“We are horrified at the death of a juvenile offender after he was reportedly badly beaten by security officers,” spokesman Rupert Colville told reporters in Geneva in a virtual briefing.
He said prisoners at Mahabad had been protesting against their “prison conditions and the failure of the authorities to temporarily release them amid the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Iran, which has been hit hard by the pandemic, has released some 100,000 prisoners, or around 40 percent of its entire prison population, to reducing crowding.
Zeinolabedini, who was on death row for a murder he allegedly committed in September 2017 at the age of 17, was put in solitary confinement and beaten by security officials at Mahabad.
He was then transferred to Miandoab prison in the same region, where he also suffered abuse, according to information provided to the rights office.
“His family said he called them on March 31 to tell them he had been badly beaten, could hardly breathe and desperately needed help. His death was confirmed on April 2,” Colville said.
The rights office said it was “particularly shocked” at Zeinolabedini’s case, since his conviction and death sentence were upheld by Iran’s Supreme Court, despite death sentences for crimes committed by minors being strictly prohibited by international law.
Colville stressed that Zeinolabedini had continued to profess his innocence.
“We call on the Iranian authorities to immediately conduct an independent and impartial investigation into Zeinolabedini’s death and hold those responsible to account,” he said.
’We are also concerned at the fate of six other people who were also reportedly beaten during the riot on March 28 and taken to Miandoab prison,” he added, urging Iranian authorities “to take all measures to protect their lives.”
UN ‘horrified’ as young offender dies in Iran after guard beating
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UN ‘horrified’ as young offender dies in Iran after guard beating
- The United Nations rights office said it had received information that Daniel Zeinolabedini died after suffering beatings following a riot in Mahabad prison
- Zeinolabedini was put in solitary confinement and beaten by security officials
Two Tunisia columnists handed over three years in prison
- Mourad Zeghidi and Borhen Bsaies have already been in detention for almost two years
- They were due to be released in January 2025 but have remained in custody on charges of money laundering
TUNIS: Two prominent Tunisian columnists were sentenced on Thursday to three and a half years in prison each for money laundering and tax evasion, according to a relative and local media.
The two men, Mourad Zeghidi and Borhen Bsaies, have already been in detention for almost two years for statements considered critical of President Kais Saied’s government, made on radio, television programs and social media.
They were due to be released in January 2025 but have remained in custody on charges of money laundering and tax evasion.
“Three and a half years for Mourad and Borhen,” Zeghidi’s sister, Meriem Zeghidi Adda, wrote on Facebook on Thursday.
Since Saied’s power grab, which granted him sweeping powers on July 25, 2021, local and international NGOs have denounced a regression of rights and freedoms in Tunisia.
Dozens of opposition figures and civil society activists are being prosecuted under a presidential decree officially aimed at combatting “fake news” but subject to a very broad interpretation denounced by human rights defenders.
Others, including opposition leaders, have been sentenced to heavy prison terms in a mega-trial of “conspiracy against state security.”
In 2025, Tunisia fell 11 places in media watchdog Reporters Without Borders’ (RSF) World Press Freedom Index, dropping from 118th to 129th out of 180 countries.
