Australian academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert speaks out after deadly Evin prison fire
Australian academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert has spoken out after a deadly fire at Tehran’s notorious Evin prison, where she was detained for 804 days.
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Australian academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert hopes Tehran’s “hellhole” Evin prison, where she was detained for 804 days, burns to the ground after four Iranian inmates died in a fire.
A huge fire broke out at the prison — which holds many of Iran’s political and dual-national detainees — with witnesses and local media reporting gunshots and explosions within its walls.
The Iranian authorities blamed the fire on “riots and clashes” among prisoners which erupted after nearly a month of protests across Iran over the death in detention of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman.
But rights groups said they had little faith in the official version of events.
“Four prisoners died due to smoke inhalation caused by the fire, and 61 were injured,” the judiciary authority’s website Mizan Online reported.
Dr Moore-Gilbert said she is concerned for her former inmates and predicts Iran is in the early throes of a revolution.
She was tried in secret and imprisoned by Iranian authorities after being convicted of espionage, a charge she was always denied before being released in November 2020.
“Prisoners could die. Staff could die. I am frantically trying to verify what’s going on with my friends inside the Evin women’s ward, sick with worry that they might be injured or harmed,” she tweeted.
“I can’t imagine how frightening it must be to be trapped and encircled by fire.
“My heart however hopes that the doors are broken open, and the prisoners flee out into the streets, and that the whole godforsaken hellhole burns to the ground.”
Prisoners’ relatives and rights groups voiced grave fears for the inmates and said authorities had used tear gas at the facility.
Gunshots and explosions can be heard during the blaze from inside the complex on videos posted on social media.
The wave of demonstrations has turned into a major anti-government movement in the Islamic republic, confronting its clerical leadership with one of its biggest challenges since the ousting of the shah in 1979.
Evin, infamous for the ill-treatment of political prisoners, also holds foreign detainees and thousands facing criminal charges.
Hundreds of those arrested during the recent demonstrations and in a crackdown on civil society have been sent there.
“We do not accept official explanations,” the Norway-based group Iran Human Rights (IHR), adding it had received reports that guards had sought to “incite” prisoners.
Reports that prominent human rights lawyer Amirsalar Davoudi, imprisoned within Evin's Ward 4, made a call from the prison last night, said a lot of teargas was fired but nobody from his ward was detained and that currently everyone is safe. https://t.co/G36JoiRX8r
— Dr Kylie Moore-Gilbert (@KMooreGilbert) October 16, 2022
Supporters of Austrian prisoner Massud Mossaheb said he was suffering from the effects of smoke inhalation and tear gas.
“He can barely speak … He is in big distress,” their Twitter account said. Hossein Sadeghi, the father of rights activist Arash Sadeghi who was arrested days ago, said he had spoken with his son.
Amnesty International’s secretary-general Agnes Callamard stressed that Iranian authorities “have the legal obligation to respect and protect the lives and wellbeing of all the prisoners”.
At least 108 people have been killed in the Amini protests, and at least 93 more died in separate clashes in Zahedan, Sistan-Baluchestan province, according to IHR.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi on Sunday accused US President Joe Biden of “inciting chaos” after he expressed support for protests, while the head of the Revolutionary Guards accused the West of a cultural “invasion” of Iranian schools.
Originally published as Australian academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert speaks out after deadly Evin prison fire
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