Iran to pardon 10,000 political and other prisoners

TEHERAN • Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei will pardon 10,000 prisoners, including political ones, in honour of the Iranian new year today, state television reported.

"Those who will be pardoned will not return to jail... almost half of those security-related prisoners will be pardoned as well," judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili told state TV.

On Tuesday, Mr Esmaili said Iran had temporarily freed about 85,000 convicts, including political prisoners, in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

"A large number of prisoners who have been temporarily freed do not need to return to jail after the leader's pardon," he said.

"The unprecedented point is that the pardon includes the security-related prisoners with less than five-year jail sentences."

Mr Esmaili did not say if it would include British-Iranian aid worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who was released on Tuesday for two weeks.

Iran said it had 189,500 people in prison, according to a report that the United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights in Iran, Mr Javaid Rehman, submitted to the Human Rights Council in January.

They are believed to include hundreds held during or after anti-government protests last November.

The coronavirus outbreak has prompted calls from the UN and the United States for political prisoners, including dozens of dual nationals and foreigners, to be released from Iran's overcrowded and disease-ridden jails.

Washington has warned Iran that it would hold the Teheran government directly responsible for any American deaths in jail.

Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards have arrested dozens of dual nationals and foreigners over recent years, including citizens of the US, Britain, Canada, Australia, Austria, France, Sweden, the Netherlands and Lebanon.

Teheran denies it holds people on political grounds, and has mainly accused foreign prisoners of espionage.

Last June, Iran released Mr Nizar Zakka, a Lebanese businessman with US permanent residency, after four years in prison.

Last year, it also released Mr Xiyue Wang, an American citizen who had been held for three years on spying charges.

Rights activists have accused Iran of arresting a number of dual nationals to try to win concessions from other countries - a charge the Islamic Republic has regularly dismissed.

Teheran has called for the release of about several dozen Iranians held in US prisons, mostly for violating sanctions imposed on Iran over its nuclear programme.

REUTERS