Health Minister: “We must improve prisons now”

Iran’s prisons are dirty, overcrowded and poorly equipped to deal with inmates’ medical needs, says Iran’s health minister.

Speaking after a visit to Qezel Hesar Prison in late February, Hassan Qazizadeh Hashemi called for ministries, local government and insurance companies to take immediate steps to improve conditions for prisoners, who, he said, were being denied basic rights and services.

Hashemi told journalists that Qezel Hesar Prison, which is located about 50 kilometers northwest of Tehran, houses twice the number of prisoners than it should and that medical services fell well below acceptable levels. “I saw patients there suffering from AIDS and resistant tuberculosis without receiving any proper medical care.” He said sanitation in the complex was poor. And, he said, it was a shame that the budget for next year did not allocate any “resources to hygiene conditions in prisons”.

Qezel Hesar Prison houses a large number of inmates sentenced for drug-related crimes. In late 2014, there were reports of high number of executions and hunger strikes at the complex.

According to Fars News Agency, the head of the prisons service, Asqar Jahangardi, invited Hashemi to visit Qezel Hesar to assess conditions. He said prisoners were being subjected to filthy cells and poor quality food and were badly treated.

“This is the first time I have visited a prison, and I have to admit that the situation is very grave. However, it is within the power of the Ministry of Health to improve conditions, working together with other ministries and related government services.”

“There is a significant shortcoming in timely medical diagnosis and treatment,” Hashemi said, referring to medical conditions among prisoners. “What I witnessed was the bare minimum.”

The first priority, he said, was to ensure the health of all inmates at the prison was improved, and that the appropriate funds were allocated. “In terms of sanitation, at the moment, this only amounts to 600 tomans (around $0.20) per day for each prisoner, while in some villages we give 96,000 tomans ($3) per person. We should ask insurance companies to carry out their task properly, with the government and the Ministry of Justice providing for the difference.”

Hashemi also said major foundations and large businesses could do their part. “They should invest money in building prisons, instead of constructing hotels in the city of Mashhad and Kish Island,” he said. “By that, I don’t mean that we must build prisons instead of hotels. What we should do is to speak to judicial authorities, including Ayatollah Larijani and his first deputy, in order to jointly carry out this major task.”

Prisons services chief Asqar Jahangardi agreed that medical services were lacking in prisons. “Unfortunately, the diseases encountered inside the prisons are not only very contagious, but also very dangerous. Epidemics are ten times higher in prison than in the outside community.”

Link to the original article in Persian