WASHINGTON/TEHRAN, March 11 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The United States called for Iran to release all American prisoners held in the country as the
coronavirus outbreak reportedly spreads through its prisons.
“The United States will hold the Iranian regime directly responsible for
any American deaths. Our response will be decisive,” US Secretary of State
Mike Pompeo said in a statement.
“Reports that COVID-19 has spread to Iranian prisons are deeply troubling
and demand nothing less than the full and immediate release of all American citizens.
“Their detention amid increasingly deteriorating conditions defies basic
human decency.”
Iran’s response to the deadly coronavirus outbreak, including temporarily
releasing 70,000 prisoners, was “too little, too late,” a UN rights expert
said.
Javaid Rehman, the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in
Iran, said Tehran was trying to “fudge” its handling of the outbreak, one of
the deadliest outside China, where the disease originated.
“The situation on coronavirus is highly disturbing within Iran,” Rehman
told reporters at the UN in Geneva.
Iran on Tuesday reported 54 new deaths in the past 24 hours, the highest
single-day toll since the start of the outbreak there. That brought the
numbers killed in the country to 291 out of 8,042 infected.
The Iranian judiciary’s Mizan Online official news agency cited Asghar
Jahangir, the head of Iran’s prisons organization, as saying that “about
70,000 prisoners” had been released in a bid to combat the outbreak.
Iran said in December it was ready for more prisoner swaps with the United States after it secured the return of scientist Massoud Soleimani in exchange for Xiyue Wang, a Chinese-born American held in the Islamic republic.
Decades-old tensions between Tehran and Washington have escalated steeply since 2018, when US President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from a landmark 2015 nuclear deal and reimposed sanctions on Iran. — NNN-AGENCIES
