Iran will pardon 10,000 more prisoners after already releasing 85,000 prisoners on temporary leave due to spike in Coronavirus death.
In an an apparent effort to combat the coronavirus and as part of steps to curb the spread of the new virus that has killed more than 1,100 people in Iran, the country has already released 85,000 prisoners on temporary leave and now, 10,000 more prisoners will be pardoned.
On Wednesday, Iran said another 147 people had died from the virus, the biggest 24-hour rise in fatalities since Iranian officials first acknowledged infections of the virus in mid-February.
Move apparently aimed at preventing further spread of coronavirus; Tehran’s Health Ministry spokesman says 1 Iranian dies ‘every 10 minutes’ of the disease.
Deputy Health Minister Alireza Raisi said: ‘With 149 new deaths in the past 24 hours, the death toll from the virus reaches 1,284. Unfortunately, we had 1,046 new cases of infection since yesterday.’
On Tuesday, judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili said Iran had temporarily freed about 85,000 people from jail, including political prisoners, in response to the coronavirus epidemic.
Two days later, State TV quoted the judiciary spokesman as saying that another 10,000 prisoners would be granted amnesty under a decree by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to mark the Iranian new year on Friday.
“Those who will be pardoned will not return to jail … almost half of those security-related prisoners will be pardoned as well,” judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili told state TV on Wednesday.
“A large number of prisoners who have been temporarily freed do not need to return to jail after the leader’s pardon,” Esmaili said.
“The unprecedented point is that the pardon also includes the security-related prisoners with less than five-year jail sentences,” Esmaili said.
