ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei offered clemency to nearly 4,000 prisoners, including those incarcerated on “security” charges, on the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr, while security forces in the southwest of the country arbitrarily detained dozens of Sunni Arabs. Every year, Khamenei pardons a number of prisoners at the request of the head of the judiciary. This year the leader agreed to pardon or commute the sentences of 3,721 convicted prisoners. “The important point in the recent clemency [offer] is the existence of a number of security prisoners amongst those pardoned,” reads a report from Fars news, a media outlet affiliated with Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). “They include students, a number of workers from Haft Tappeh and a number of those detained during the Labor Day,” adds the report, referencing workers arrested in droves by security forces at Haft Tappeh sugarcane factory in Khuzestan province during a strike for lack of pay in November 2018. Khamenei’s clemency order comes just several days after an appeal court in Tehran upheld 100 years and four months sentence for ten security prisoners charged with insulting the Supreme Leader and propaganda against the establishment, among a host of other charges. The number of detainees considered a “security” threat in Iran, is not known but human rights organizations estimate that thousands are imprisoned in the country on political, security and religious charges. The IRGC intelligence, the ministry of intelligence and other security forces arbitrarily and regularly detains a large number of people every year. “The use of arbitrary detention remains a constant concern. The Special Rapporteur echoes the concerns expressed by the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention in an October 2019 opinion, in which the Working Group highlighted that the systemic problem of arbitrary detention in the country amounted to a serious violation of international law,” UN Special rapporteur Javaid Rehman said in his latest report on the human rights situation in the Islamic Republic of Iran, released January. Dozens of Sunni Arabs were detained without any explanation on Thursday by security forces in the Malashiya area of Khuzestan province’s city of Ahwaz. The families of those detained did not receive information on the reasons for the arrests. Security forces used pellet guns and tear gas in a neighborhood in Ahwaz on Saturday to disperse residents who protested about a lack of drinking water. Internationally renowned prisoners such as Nasrin Sotoudeh, an outspoken lawyer and a voice for the religious and ethnic minorities, have not benefited from Khamenei’s clemency deal and are still languishing in jail. Sotoudeh is expected to serve 30 years in prison and receive 111 lashes for her human rights work. As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to wreak havoc across Iran, authorities claim that over 100,000 inmates have been released in recent months as a preventative measure to stop the spread of the virus. However as the furlough of these prisoners comes to an end at the end of May, it is not clear how many of will return to prison.
