Iran releases prisoners, bans Nowruz celebrations

TEHRAN - Iran has temporarily freed about 85,000 prisoners, including political prisoners in response to the coronavirus pandemic, a judiciary spokesman said on Tuesday,

Iran has reported 16,169 coronavirus cases and 988 deaths from the virus in one of the worst national outbreaks outside China, where the pandemic originated.

Judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili said those serving sentences of less than five years had been freed, while most political prisoners and others charged with heavier sentences linked to their participation in anti-government protests remained in jail.

Asked whether political prisoners were among those freed, he told a briefing aired by state television: "Yes, about 50% of the security-related prisoners have been released."

"Also in the jails we have taken precautionary measures to confront the outbreak," Esmaili added. He did not elaborate on when those released would have to return to jail.

On March 10, the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in Iran, Javaid Rehman, said he had asked Tehran to free all political prisoners temporarily from its overcrowded and disease-ridden jails to help stem the spread of coronavirus.

Iran had announced the release of 70,000 prisoners on March 9 in response to the virus, but none were political detainees. Before the March 9 release, Iran said it had 189,500 people in prison, according to a report Rehman submitted to the Human Rights Council in January. They are believed to include hundreds of people arrested during or after anti-government protests in November.

The United States has called for the release of dozens of dual nationals and foreigners held mainly on spying charges in Iran, saying that Washington will hold the government directly responsible for any American deaths.

On Tuesday, the husband of jailed British-Iranian aid worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe said she had been temporarily released in Iran for two weeks.

"Unfortunately, Nazanin will be exceptionally required to wear an ankle tag during the furlough, which her parents have now hired from the authorities," Richard Ratcliffe said. "Nazanin's movements will be restricted to 300 metres from her parents' home."

Earlier this month Ratcliffe said he feared his wife had contracted coronavirus but the Iranian judiciary said she was in good health.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 40, a project manager with the Thomson Reuters Foundation, was arrested in April 2016 at a Tehran airport as she headed back to Britain with her daughter after a family visit. She was sentenced to five years in jail after being convicted of plotting to overthrow Iran's clerical establishment.

But activists campaigning for her release say those are trumped-up charges, and that Iran holds political prisoners with foreign citizenship for diplomatic leverage and as incentive to negotiate prisoner swaps with Western states.

More stringent precautions

Iran's clerical rulers have rejected locking down cities despite the rising death toll and the rate of new cases but they have urged people to avoid travelling ahead of the Iranian new year on March 20, amid concerns over further spreading of the virus.

Many Iranians have ignored calls by the health authorities to stay at home, and shops and restaurants remained open in the country. But in a rare move, the establishment has closed the holy Shiite Muslim sites and shrines in Mashhad and Qom, the holy Shiite city that was the epicentre of Iran's coronavirus outbreak.

Police dispersed a group of hardline demonstrators who gathered on late Monday at Imam Reza Shrine in Mashahd and Masumeh Shrine in Qom to protest against their closure, state media reported. Two protesters had been arrested.

“We are here to say that Tehran is damn wrong to do that!” one Shiite cleric shouted at the shrine in Mashhad, according to online video. Others joined him in chanting: “The health minister is damn wrong to do that, the president is damn wrong to do that!”

Iran's shrines draw Shiites from all over the Mideast for pilgrimages, likely contributing to the spread of the virus across the region. Saudi Arabia earlier closed off Islam’s holiest sites over fear of the virus spreading.

Roughly nine out of 10 of the over 17,000 cases of the new virus confirmed across the Middle East come from Iran, where authorities denied for days the risk the outbreak posed. But with the number of confirmed cases, officials were forced to take more drastic action.

Iran has now implemented new checks for people trying to leave major cities ahead of Nowruz, the Persian New Year, on Friday, but had hesitated to quarantine the areas. Iranian police on Monday announced a ban on celebrations marking the New Year fire festival.

"Any gathering on the occasion of Chaharshanbe Soori is prohibited and the police will forcefully confront those who do" gather, state news agency IRNA quoted Tehran's police chief General Hossein Rahimi as saying on Monday.

Chaharshanbe Soori is held annually on the last Wednesday evening before the spring holiday of Nowruz, which starts on March 20.

Iranians traditionally jump over fires and light fireworks to celebrate the event, with many suffering burns resulting in hospitalisation.

Virus vs US sanctions

Officials have blamed US sanctions, reimposed on Tehran since Washington quit Iran's 2015 nuclear agreement with six powers, for hampering Tehran's fight against the coronavirus.

"Unlawful US sanctions drained Iran's economic resources, impairing ability to fight #COVID19,"Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif tweeted on Tuesday.

Tehran has called on other countries to back its call for lifting of US sanctions. Sources said on Monday that Washington was unlikely to ease sanctions on Iran despite an appeal from China that it do so because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Russia has also cast the blame on Washington for the scale of the outbreak in Iran, saying that "American inhumane policies raise great regret and deep concern for us.”

Last week, Iran said it had asked the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for $5 billion in emergency funding to combat the outbreak.

The United Arab Emirates, a rival of Iran, has put aside differences to lend support by sending two planes carrying 32 tonnes of medical supplies, including gloves and surgical masks.

Other countries in the Middle East have imposed strict measures such as closing their borders and suspending flights.

Kuwait's health ministry on Tuesday reported seven new cases, all among Kuwaitis who had been to Britain to take the country's toll to 130.

Bahrain on Monday reported the Arab Gulf region's first death from the disease as the number of infections in the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council crossed 1,000.

Oman, which lies across the Gulf from Iran, said anyone entering the sultanate as of Tuesday would be quarantined. It had earlier imposed restrictions on entry to allow only Gulf Arab citizens.