BAGHDAD – A massive fire broke out Saturday at a notorious prison that houses political prisoners and anti-government activists in Iran’s capital. Online videos and local media cover the shootings, such as nationwide protests into the fifth week.
Iran’s state-run IRNA reported that there had been clashes between inmates in one block and prison staff, citing a senior security official. The official said inmates set fire to a warehouse filled with prison uniforms, causing the fire. He said the “rioters” had been separated from other prisoners to de-escalate the conflict.
The official said that the “situation is completely under control” and that firefighters were putting out the fire. Later, Tehran’s prosecutor Ali Salehi said “peace” had returned to prison and that the unrest was unrelated to the four-week-long protests across the country.
Footage of the fire is circulating online. Videos showed footage of the reverberation as clouds of smoke filled the sky in Tehran amid alarm bells.
Witnesses said police blocked roads and highways to Evin prison and at least three loud explosions were heard from the area. Traffic was heavy along major motorways near the prison, in the north of the capital, and many people honked their horns to show solidarity with the protests.
Riot police were seen riding their motorbikes towards the facility, as were ambulances and fire trucks. Witnesses reported that the Internet was blocked in the area.
The Iran-based Center for Human Rights reports that an “armed conflict” has broken out within the prison’s walls. It said gunfire was first heard in Ward 7 of the prison. This account cannot be verified immediately.
Anti-government protests have continued for weeks
The prison fire came as protesters stepped up anti-government demonstrations along main streets and at universities in several cities across Iran on Saturday. Human rights monitors reported hundreds of deaths, including children, as the movement ended its fourth week.
Protesters chanted “Down with the dictator” on the streets of Ardabil in the northwest of the country. Outside universities in Kermanshah, Rasht and Tehran, students rallied, according to videos on social media. In the city of Sanandaj, a hotbed of protests in the northern Kurdish region, schoolgirls chanted “Women, life, freedom” on a central street.
Protests erupted after public outrage over the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody. She was arrested by the Iranian ethics police in Tehran for violating the Islamic Republic’s strict dress code. The Iranian government insists Amini was not mistreated in police custody, but her family said her body had bruises and other signs of beatings after she was detained.
At least 233 protesters have been killed since protests swept through Iran on September 17, according to the US-based human rights watchdog HRANA. The group said 32 of those killed were under the age of 18. Earlier, the Oslo-based Iran Human Rights Organization estimated that 201 people had been killed.
Iranian authorities have dismissed the unrest as a purported Western conspiracy without providing evidence.
Public anger in Iran has piled up around Amini’s death, prompting girls and women to take off their headscarves in the streets in a show of solidarity. Other segments of society, including oil workers, also joined the movement, which has spread to at least 19 cities, becoming one of the biggest challenges to the country’s theocracy. Iran since its 2009 Green Movement.
Riots have also broken out in prisons, with reported clashes between inmates and guards at Lakan prison in northern Gilan province recently.
Trade strikes continued on Saturday in key cities across the Kurdish region, including Saqqez, Amini’s hometown and birthplace of the protests, Bukan and Sanandaj.
The government responded with a brutal crackdown, arresting activists and protest organizers, reprimanding Iranian celebrities for voicing support, even confiscating their passports and using live bullets, tear gas and sonic bombs to disperse crowds, resulting in deaths.
In a widely circulated video on Saturday, plainclothes Basij, a group of paramilitary volunteers, is seen forcing a woman into a car and firing bullets into the air amid a protest in the city. Gohardasht, northern Iran.
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, the widespread loss of life has also made it difficult for protesters to communicate with the outside world, while Iranian authorities have arrested at least 40 journalists since the incident. The unrest began, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
