Hypocrisy or Hope: A Deeper Look at Iran’s Mass Prison Releases 

By Hamid Yazdan Panah

Originally published in Issue 36 of The Abolitionist

During the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, the regime in Iran made headlines when it announced that they would be releasing 85,000 prisoners.  At the time, the policy was lauded by some and contrasted with the inaction by many US states with respect to carceral releases. A closer examination of Iranian prison policies reveals a very different picture, one that warrants an analysis that is not simply used to critique western policies. 

On the US left, the political discourse on Iran is often juxtaposed with the West and analyzed within the framework of U.S. imperialism. This analysis will often contrast policies by the Iranian regime with their US counterpart, with the intent of rehabilitating a perceived image of Iran.  This perspective leaves little room for a complete understanding of the reality on the ground, and reinforces a simplistic narrative that leaves Iranians as little more than an object of Western analysis. This is particularly true of discussions related to human rights and Iran’s penal system. 

While Iran has a long and storied history, the current regime can and should be described as a theocratic dictatorship, run by an unelected Supreme Leader with an estimated wealth in the tens of billions of dollars. Despite its international posturing and supposed revolutionary roots, the regime is one of the most reactionary and repressive in the world.

Mass Imprisonment and Capital Punishment in Iran

Iran is home to one of the harshest penal systems in the world, operating as an enforcement mechanism for state power and often used to crush dissent. Reports have placed Iran’s prison population well over 240,000 people held in some 253 facilities, despite the officially declared capacity of 85,000.

Iran reportedly had a 333% increase in prison population between 1985 and 2017. These statistics coincide with an increase in criminalized behavior related to poverty and economic exclusion, with judiciary officials estimating that a high number of prisoners are serving time related to drugs or robbery. 

Dissidents and human rights groups have noted that judicial proceedings in Iran occur with little or no due process. Trials are often deeply politicized and flawed, prisoners are often not allowed access to legal counsel, and denied the procedural remedies of appeal. Political prisoners who are sentenced to death usually see their fates sealed in court proceedings that occur in a matter of minutes.

These executions, often carried out by public hanging, hold a special political significance beyond the administration of supposed justice. They are in essence an abstraction of the political and judicial climate in Iran, in which a population is controlled through sheer violence and terror.

For much of the last decade, Iran has led the world in per capita executions. Many of these executions are related to either drug charges, or so-called political crimes, including “waging war against God”, a charge often used against dissidents organizing against the regime. 

Those executed are often individuals who are marginalized in Iranian society. This includes undocumented migrants and refugees from neighboring Afghanistan, as well as ethnic and religious minorities who face disenfranchisement in Iran. In 2014, Iran hanged an Afghan juvenile, 17-year-old Jannat Mir, for an alleged drug offense, despite the fact that he was a minor. Iran remains one of the only countries in the world to execute juvenile offenders.

The irony is that the regime’s blood-soaked policy on drugs and capital punishment has been bankrolled by the United Nations. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime has given Iran  more than $15 million since 1998 in order to fight the “war on drugs” and most of this money comes from European nations, despite their own opposition to the death penalty. 

The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the horrific nature of Iran’s penal system. The regimes response to the COVID-19 outbreak, is a case study in cruelty and hypocrisy. 

At the outset of the pandemic, the regime announced its plans to conduct mass releases, and this announcement was coupled by additional questionable claims, including that prisons would be taking “precautionary measures” to combat the virus, and that “security-related prisoners” otherwise known as political prisoners, would be included in the releases only if their sentence was for less than five years.  Activists have noted that many who were eligible for release, or furloughs, as they are often termed in Iran, did not have the financial means to pay for the high bail amounts given. While welcoming the news of the release, Michelle Bachelet, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights issued a statement in October of 2020, calling for additional releases and noting concerns that “some categories of prisoners were disproportionately excluded, including political prisoners, protesters, lawyers and human rights defenders.”

As the virus spread throughout the country, many who remained in prison continued to voice concern over the dismal conditions they faced. Some of those detained in prison resorted to escape attempts to save their lives. Local media reported that a major prison break occurred on March 27 in the Saqqesz prison in Western Kurdistan province, with as many as 74 prisoners escaping conditions at the prison’s medical center.

By the summer of 2020, Iran had increased the number of releases to nearly 100,000. However, these releases did little to hide the brutal reality for those still trapped inside Iran’s prisons. In July of 2020, France 24 reported that Iran had seen riots in at least 10 prisons over a 10 week period, with those inside calling for basic hygienic supplies like soap and water. In late July, 

In July of 2020, Amnesty International published leaked letters documenting pleas from senior officials responsible for prison management, pleading for additional resources to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 amongst prisoners. The disclosures included one original letter, and four follow-up letters requesting protective gear and disinfectant products, with subsequent letters repeating requests and noting the absence of any governmental response. In the latest letter obtained by Amnesty International, dated 5 July 2020, a senior official at the Prisons Organization states that they had received no response from the Ministry of Health and asks for an urgent meeting.

Repression and Resistance

The situation had not improved by early 2021. In April, Amnesty International reported that thousands of prisoners in at least eight prisons staged protests over fears of contracting coronavirus, resulting in a deadly crackdown by security forces, including members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and paramilitary Basij force. This included the use of tear gas and live ammunition, killing at least 21 prisoners, with some reports placing the number as high as 36. 

On March 30 and 31, 2021, security forces, including members of Iran’s revolutionary guards, suppressed protests in Sepidar prison in the Khuzestan province of Iran. The protests had started after authorities had reneged on their promise to release prisoners as a precautionary measure to prevent the spread of COVID. Prisoners and their families had organized hunger strikes and demonstrations around demands for releases, testing, and adequate sanitary products and facilities. The attack against the prisoners resulted in at least 15 deaths, and the transfer of several activists to other prisons and held incommunicado. One family reported to Amnesty that  they had been ordered to collect the body of their loved ones, and were told that they had died from a drug overdose, despite the fact that they had never used drugs.

An prisoner released from Sepidar prison provided the following quote to France24: 

“The other advice people give most for avoiding COVID-19 is social distancing. But that’s not possible either because both the prisons in Ahvaz are overcrowded. They were built for 2,000 prisoners, but there are about 4,000 people at Sepidar and 5,000 in Sheiban. There are sometimes 20 people in a single cell. Many people have to sleep on the floor.”

Danial Zeinolabedini, charged as a minor and held on death row also reportedly died under torture. Danial had been taking part in protests in Mahabad prison, when he was transferred to Mindoab prison, and called his family to report that he had been severely beaten by guards and pleaded for help. Three days later authorities called his family to collect his body, claiming that he had committed suicide. His family dispute the circumstances of death, and reported that his body bore signs of torture.

Despite the dire circumstances, activists in jail have continued to organize with their families and other members of Iranian civil society. In August of 2020 and May of 2021, Nasrin Sotoudeh, a prominent Iranian lawyer and human rights activist, launched hunger strikes to protest the failure of authorities to grant temporary releases and furloughs and apply the release mandate to political prisoners.

Sotoudeh, who is serving a thirty eight year prison sentence for her human rights work, including being charged with “encouraging prostitution” for advocating against the compulsory veiling of women.  Sotoudeh’s most recent hunger strike, which reportedly lasted several weeks, was coordinated with other activists to pressure the judiciary to take action on releases.

Soutoudeh’s husband, Reza Khandan was critical of the regime’s policies in the wake of the pandemic and pointed out the hypocrisy of the regime, stating,“Even in such an extraordinary situation, the Government conducted a ‘sensationalist’ release of thousands of prisoners, but has still refrained from freeing all political prisoners.”

Seeking Justice At Home and Abroad

In all, Iran was reported to have released as many as 128,000 prisoners on furlough, and pardoned another 10,000 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, yet these numbers belie the reality that the regime had for years been incarcerating almost twice the total number of individuals it had capacity to hold, and largely ignored granting clemency to prisoners of conscience. 

Thousands of political prisoners still remain in custody, and those who dare to organize or protest the regime are quick to join them. Their families have appealed to the authorities to release them on furlough at least until the health crisis is under control, but the regime continues to view dissent as the ultimate crime, and its punitive authority as a core foundation. The failures of Iranian authorities with respect to prisons is further heightened by their callous propaganda on the matter, with the head of the judiciary at one point claiming that prisoners enjoyed  “better standards of health care and sanitation than they would in society”.

Despite the bleak outlook, Iranian activists have struck back at the regime. 

In August of 2021, Swedish prosecutors brought a landmark case against an Iranian official accused of participating in the 1988 massacre of political prisoners in Iran. The case, which relies on the concept of universal jurisdiction for certain crimes against humanity, is supplemented by thousands of pages of evidence compiled by various Iranian activists. The 1988 massacre has for decades been a taboo subject in Iran, with authorities refusing to acknowledge the summary execution of thousands of political prisoners in the summer of that year. 

That same month, a group of hackers launched an audacious attack against one of Iran’s most notorious prisons, releasing video footage directly from Evin prison in Tehran. The hackers shared footage they obtained through the prison’s video surveillance and computer network with journalists. The hacking incident elicited a rare apology from the Iranian regime officials, with Prisons Organisation chief Mohammad Mehdi Haj-Mohammadi pledging responsibility for unacceptable behavior. 

The footage not only included direct recordings from the prisons own surveillance system, showing guards beating prisoners, individuals kept in solitary confinement, but it also showed the moment when hackers revealed to authorities that they had breached their system. The hackers sent a direct message to prison authorities on their own internal monitors, including flashing the message “General protest until the freedom of political prisoners” on the screens.  

Since the start of 2022, protests have raged throughout the country, fanning the flames of dissent that have been persistent in Iranian civil society since 2009, if not long before. The protests have unsurprisingly been meant with vicious repression, with human rights organizations noting that Iran has increased executions in direct response to popular protests. 

In July of 2022, the Swedish court issued a life sentence with respect to the arrest of the Iranian official and his role in the 1988 massacre, in what many Iranians in exile hailed a step towards “truth and justice.” The ruling is not insignificant on an issue that the regime has long sought to bury, but continues to haunt the legitimacy of the establishment, including the current president Raisi. 

The recent protests and pandemic have laid bare the outrageous hypocrisy and brutal reality of Iran’s penal system. For western observers this requires a deeper analysis than simply contrasting Iran’s policies with those of America, but a deeper understanding of Iran’s repressive policies and and an appreciation for the grassroots resistance and heroic actions of those engaged in popular struggle. 

Such an analysis does not require a high level of cultural literacy, but to witness the universal acts of resistance that occur in prisons and protests throughout the world. Following the hacking of Evin prison’s computers, the activists behind the operation shared the following message to the world: “We want the world to hear our voice for freedom of all political prisoners.” It is time that we listen. 

Hamid Yazdan Panah is an Iranian refugee, residing in the United States. Hamid is the Advocacy Director for Immigrant Defense Advocates, a California-based project focused on Immigration Detention.