The Population of Prisoners in Iran Reaches 'Over 200,000'

The Vice President of the Judicial and Legal Commission of the Parliament criticized the increase in the number of prisoners in the country, announcing that the population of prisoners in Iran has exceeded 200,000. Hamidreza Tabatabai Naeini stated in an interview with the House of Nation news agency on Saturday, April 23, that the families of prisoners, especially the families of the executed and those sentenced to long-term imprisonment, are exposed to the greatest harms in the country. This parliamentary official added that provisions for supporting the families of prisoners are included in the regulations of the Prison Organization, but at the same time, he called for the establishment of a 'Support Organization for Families of Prisoners' due to the high number of prisoners in the country. The Vice President of the Judicial and Legal Commission emphasized that the government, with its limited resources, is unable to support the families of prisoners. This representative of the ninth parliament stated that many families of prisoners are at risk of committing criminal acts, attributing this to the conditions and environment that facilitate such actions for these individuals. He noted that currently, 60% of prisoners are drug-related offenders, emphasizing that repeated executions and long prison sentences have only left social harms and armed up traffickers. The U.S. State Department, in its annual report on human rights violations in Iran, pointed to severe restrictions on civil liberties and the increasing use of the death penalty for minors, identifying crimes that are not even recognized as 'serious crimes' as the most significant human rights issues in Iran. Regarding the failure of the decriminalization bill, Hamidreza Tabatabai Naeini continued in his dialogue, attributing the lack of progress on the so-called decriminalization bill to the opposition of government organizations. The increase and excessive density of criminal cases and convictions on one side and the many obligations and duties prescribed for the judiciary according to regulations led the Center for Studies and Research of the Judiciary to prepare and present the decriminalization and crime reduction bill about ten years ago. The decriminalization bill was prepared in line with the policy of reducing imprisonment, decreasing criminal titles, and using alternative punishments to imprisonment, including the necessity of decriminalizing criminal laws, expanding decriminalization policy, using quasi-judicial commissions in proceedings, and removing certain criminal titles from laws. Tabatabai Naeini reminded that the decriminalization bill was also raised in the Judicial and Legal Commission of the Parliament to reduce criminal titles, but the opposition of many responsible organizations in the government prevented this bill from reaching completion.