What is Happening in Qarchak Prison?

Unrest and protests by prisoners in Qarchak Prison in Varamin, reportedly sparked by the guards' negligence towards a sick inmate, led to the intervention of riot police and the suppression of prisoners yesterday. The confrontation with female prisoners escalated to the use of tear gas, resulting in several inmates being sent to the hospital. According to sources close to the prisoners, following this attack, sections one and two of the prison caught fire. The fire started when inmates, forced to burn their blankets to cope with the tear gas, inadvertently set other belongings ablaze. Since yesterday, as protests and unrest spread in Qarchak Prison, phone lines have been cut, leaving the families of prisoners in the dark. Pouria Noori, a member of the Gonabadi Dervishes whose mother, Shokufe Yadollahi, is imprisoned in Qarchak, tweeted: 'I went to Qarchak Prison to inquire about my mother and other prisoners. In addition to the phone lines, gas and electricity have also been cut since yesterday. We are in the dark and no one is accountable. It has been reported that confrontations continued until last night, and some prisoners have been transferred outside the prison.' Qarchak Prison, which houses female prisoners, officially reopened in late 2010. This prison, which was previously a poultry farm and then turned into a drug rehabilitation camp, was rapidly reconstructed following judicial authorities' decision to consolidate all female prisoners from Tehran and Alborz provinces. Before it had standard prison facilities, female prisoners were transferred in groups from various prisons. From then on, there were no female prisoners left in prisons like Evin, Ghazel Hesar, Rajai Shahr, Kachoui, and other provincial prisons, except for a few political prisoners in security wards. This prison, located on the Qom road, has repeatedly made headlines due to a lack of basic facilities and its unsuitable location. According to older reports, Qarchak Prison has seven warehouses, while newer reports indicate it has ten halls. Halls five to ten are counseling wards under the supervision of Tehran Municipality, which have better conditions and are inspected during visits by officials. Each hall has a capacity of less than one hundred, but typically houses over two hundred inmates, and at times this number has reached six hundred, making life difficult and unbearable for the prisoners due to the prison's substandard conditions and lack of facilities. A former inmate has written about her experiences in this prison: 'This prison is below the health line. It is full of cockroaches, mice, and snakes, and millipedes, beetles, and everything else are nothing compared to them. I don’t know what their criteria were to build a prison in such a remote and dangerous place, and our families come here with fear. We live here in fear. We don’t even have hot water and have to bathe with cold water. In winter, the situation is truly dire. The cold water and the warehouse environment that cannot be easily heated have made our lives miserable.' Reports indicate that the unrest in Qarchak Prison began in section one, known as 'the drug users'. Generally, the section for drug offenders is one of the worst and lowest quality sections of the prison. Inmates in this section live under harsher conditions than other prisoners due to financial inability. While others can occasionally buy food items from the prison store, drug users can only rely on the prison's food rations. Fights, conflicts, and hygiene are relatively less than in other sections. Many of them are forced to work in prison workshops for long hours or work for other inmates to make a meager living. This is why desperate prisoners are more ready to protest than others. Narges Hosseini, one of the girls from Revolution Street, said in an interview with the Iranian Women's Association after her release from prison: 'Each prisoner is issued a credit card, and all needs are fulfilled with that bank card. Many prisoners had no one outside to recharge their cards, and to get even a phone card, they had to do any work. For example, they washed the dishes and clothes of other prisoners. Poverty also grips some in prison, and you can see class inequality in prison as well. This inequality is very hard in prison.' Meanwhile, some reports quoting the prison chief say that the reason for the protests and unrest was the news about the pardon of prisoners on the eve of the fortieth anniversary of the revolution. This news was announced a few days ago by Sadegh Larijani, stating that fifty thousand prisoners would be released or have their sentences reduced on this occasion. The sister of one of the prisoners in Qarchak says: 'Female prisoners were very hopeful in the days before and after hearing this news, and everyone was waiting for their names to be among those released. Creating hope and anticipation for freedom is undoubtedly the greatest suffering that can be imposed on a prisoner.' Hopeful prisoners who had been waiting for several days to hear their names over the prison loudspeakers suddenly faced the deterioration of a fellow inmate's health on Thursday night. Since this incident occurred during the prison's quiet hours, they tried to alert the guards about their friend's serious condition by banging on the doors of the ward. However, the scope of this protest and conflict spread to section two and then to other sections of the prison, prompting officials to respond with an attack and the use of pepper spray in the poorly ventilated warehouse areas, which seriously affected the prisoners. Cutting off electricity and gas to prevent fires is another measure that prison officials used, leaving the prisoners in cold and darkness. The lack of drinking water, poor-quality food that many prisoners are forced to consume, the absence of cooling and heating facilities, insufficient sanitary services, and the high prices of goods in the prison store are among the issues that constantly endanger the lives of prisoners in this prison. Prisoners who face these daily problems and lack the minimum facilities for human living either engage in conflicts among themselves or, if pushed to the brink, protest against prison officials. For those who have experienced life in public prison wards, understanding these problems and the state of prisoners who bang on the doors in desperation is not difficult. However, this is not the first time that prisoners have protested and revolted in prison; the dire conditions can push any prisoner to a level of anger and frustration that they protest, even at the cost of injury or death or an increase in their prison term. Previously, in 2010 and 2014, Ghazel Hesar Prison witnessed widespread riots where inmates attempted to prevent the execution of other inmates and, according to official reports, at least 16 people were killed during these riots.