Four inmates killed and 61 injured in Iran prison fire

Inmates killed by smoke inhalation after huge blaze in jail where many political prisoners are held

Smoke rising out of Evin prison in Tehran (Twitter/ Vahid Online)

Four people have died after a huge fire broke out inside Iran’s notorious Evin prison, authorities have said.

The inmates, who were held in the prison in Tehran on robbery convictions, died of smoke inhalation after the blaze started on Saturday.

At least 61 people were injured, including 10 that were hospitalised – with four in serious condition, the Iranian judiciary said on Sunday.

The fire was extinguished after several hours and no detainees escaped although a number of them tried, the Iranian state media reported.

The blaze broke out after a fight between prisoners, the reports added in an apparent attempt to separate the incident from protests that have been raging across Iran triggered by the death of a young woman in police custody.

Gunshots were heard at the prison while plumes of smoke rose from the building and alarms sounded, videos posted online and local media reported.

Hundreds of people, including many political prisoners, are incarcerated at Evin, where charities have reported repeated abuses of human rights. 

The US-based Centre for Human Rights in Iran said an “armed conflict” broke out within the prison walls. It added shots were first heard in ward seven of the jail.

The activist website 1500tasvir shared video footage it said showed special forces on motorbikes heading for the prison.

The unrest at Evin prison came during the fifth week of anti-government protests across Iran that erupted after Mahsa Amini died last month at the age of 22 following her arrest by Iran’s “morality police”.

Public anger over Ms Amini’s death saw girls and women removing their mandatory headscarves and cutting their hair on the street in protest.

At least 233 protesters have been killed since demonstrations swept Iran on 17 September, estimates from the US-based rights monitor HRANA show. The group said 32 of those dead were below the age of 18.

The protests continued on Sunday, including in the cities of Tabriz and Rasht, to a heavy deployment of riot police.

“Iran has turned into a big prison,” videos posted on social media showed students at a Tehran university chanting. “Evin prison has become a slaughterhouse.”

Other videos showed fires being lit at road intersections in several cities, including the capital and Piranshahr where car drivers honked their horns and anti-government slogans could be heard.

Dozens of protesters were also seen in a poor neighbourhood of Tehran, before being dispersed by security forces mounted on motorbikes and shooting tear gas cannisters in the air.

On Sunday, Iran’spresident Ebrahim Raisi on Sunday blamed his US counterpart Joe Biden for inciting “chaos, terror, and destruction”.

“The American president, who allows himself through his comments to incite chaos, terror and destruction in another country, should be reminded of the eternal words of the founder of the Islamic Republic, who called America the great satan,” IRNA reported Raisi as saying.

It comes after Mr Biden on Saturday called on Iran “to end the violence against its own citizens simply exercising their fundamental rights.”