Following Masha Amini’s imprisonment for allegedly breaking Iran’s severe dress code for women, the 22-year-old died after four weeks of protests over her death. Iran said that the conflagration that broke out on Saturday night occurred during “riots and fights.”
The wave of protests has grown into a significant anti-government movement in the Islamic Republic, posing one of the greatest threats to the clerical leadership since the overthrow of the shah in 1979.
According to the judiciary’s Mizan Online website, “the overall number of casualties of the fire and the conflict between convicts has reached eight” after four Evin prison inmates injured in the fire died in hospitals.
In video footage shared on social media platforms, gunshots and explosions can be heard during the fire from within the complex, which is lit up by flames and obscured by smoke.
Families of prisoners and civil rights organisations have expressed major concerns about other detainees and said that officials deployed tear gas at the institution.
In addition to holding international detainees and thousands of others facing criminal accusations, Evin is notorious for mistreating political prisoners.
There have been sent hundreds of people who were detained during the most recent protests and in a crackdown on civic society.
