Member of the Judiciary Commission of Parliament: We intend to visit more prisons

The Vice President of the Legal and Judicial Commission of the Islamic Consultative Assembly stated that the visiting delegation from Evin Prison intends to visit other prisons as well. Mohammad Kazemi announced this news on Thursday, February 1, in an interview with the ISNA news agency. After the visit of a parliamentary delegation to Evin Prison, Mr. Kazemi added that this delegation has decided to visit prisons in provinces where 'the number of detainees [from the protests in December 2017] is still significant.' This representative noted that although coordination for the visit to Evin Prison was 'time-consuming,' the visit was 'useful and effective and had a positive impact.' He did not elaborate on what he meant by 'positive' and added that 'if this visit had been done sooner, it would have been much better.' However, it is unclear how judicial authorities and the prison organization will respond to the delegation's request to visit other prisons in Iran. Following the protests in December of this year in over 100 cities in Iran, which, according to Mahmoud Sadqi, a member of parliament, resulted in the arrest of 3,700 people, reports also emerged regarding the deaths of at least five individuals in Evin, Arak, Sanandaj, and Dezful prisons. Official judicial authorities confirmed the deaths of two individuals in Evin and Arak prisons but stated that they 'committed suicide.' The publication of this news prompted several members of parliament to request a visit to Evin Prison. Ali Motahari, the Deputy Speaker of Parliament, also called for an investigation into the deaths of individuals who 'are said to have committed suicide in recent events in the country's prisons.' Mr. Kazemi, while speaking of the 'usefulness' of this visit, criticized the large presence of agents during the visit, stating that parliamentarians could not speak privately with the prisoners. Mohammad Kazemi added that while the presence of agents in the prison is not unusual, 'they were in significant numbers, and it would have been better if no one accompanied us or only the head of the prison organization or the head of Evin Prison were with us.' According to him, the number of agents during this visit exceeded that of the representatives, which is undesirable because 'it was necessary to speak privately with some prisoners.' Eleven members of the Islamic Consultative Assembly visited Ward 4 and Section 209 of Evin Prison, which is under the Ministry of Intelligence, on Tuesday to assess the conditions of detainees from the December protests. From the statements of the parliament members, it appears that during their visit to Evin Prison, only six of the detainees from the recent protests were present, and the representatives were able to meet with four of them. Kazemi called for further investigation into the case of Sina Ghanbari, a 23-year-old who was arrested during the recent protests in Tehran and was later reported by Islamic Republic officials to have 'committed suicide' in prison. The Malayer representative stated regarding this case: 'Our request is that the investigator examine the matter more carefully, although the explanations indicated that suicide was involved, since this is a matter of public rights, especially since this individual was very young, we hope it will be examined thoroughly.' Elahyar Malekshahi, the head of the Legal and Judicial Commission of Parliament, also stated after the visit of the representatives to Evin Prison that questions from the representatives were answered in a meeting with the head of the prison organization and the officials of Evin Prison. He noted that the 'suicide' video of Sina Ghanbari was also shown to the visiting representatives from Evin Prison, and it was added that all aspects of the visit would be reviewed and a report would be given to the public and the media. In the recent protests in Iran, which began in response to rising prices and quickly escalated to criticism of the Islamic Republic's domestic and foreign policies, 25 individuals were confirmed to have been killed in the streets, according to judicial and law enforcement officials.