DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — A weekend fire at Iran’s notorious Evin Prison damaged one of the largest buildings in the complex, according to satellite photos analyzed Monday. Authorities raised to eight the number of inmates killed, doubling the initial toll.
The fire at one of Tehran’s most heavily guarded facilities potentially raises the stakes for those continuing to rally against the government and the mandatory headscarf, or hijab, for women after the Sept. 16 death of Mahsa Amini. The reformist newspaper Etemad on Monday quoted Mostafa Nili, a lawyer for some political prisoners at Evin, as identifying one of the affected areas as Ward 8. He described those imprisoned there as political prisoners and others convicted on financial charges.
Earlier Monday, Iran’s judiciary raised the death toll from the blaze to eight, after initially reporting four deaths over the weekend. Evin Prison, in northern Tehran abutting the foothills of the Alborz Mountains, first opened under Iran’s Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in 1972. Iran’s theocracy took over the facility after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, which answers only to Khamenei, operates its own prison cells at the complex, as does Iran’s Intelligence Ministry, which reports to the country’s presidency.
Iran carries out executions, as well as punishments such as amputations, prescribed under Islamic laws and ordered by the country’s hard-line court system, at Evin. Human rights activists have long documented abuses at the site. Last year, an online account purportedly by an entity describing itself as a group of hackers, leaked a series of videos to the AP showing fighting and grim conditions at the prison.
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