Guards, Female Inmates Clash at Iran Evin Prison, Says Nobel Winner’s Family

 Iranian women walks past a mural with a picture of the Iranian flag on a street in Tehran, Iran, October 6, 2023. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via Reuters.
Iranian women walks past a mural with a picture of the Iranian flag on a street in Tehran, Iran, October 6, 2023. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via Reuters.
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Guards, Female Inmates Clash at Iran Evin Prison, Says Nobel Winner’s Family

 Iranian women walks past a mural with a picture of the Iranian flag on a street in Tehran, Iran, October 6, 2023. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via Reuters.
Iranian women walks past a mural with a picture of the Iranian flag on a street in Tehran, Iran, October 6, 2023. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via Reuters.

Guards beat female inmates in clashes that erupted at Tehran's Evin prison following a spate of executions, the family of jailed Nobel peace prize winner Narges Mohammadi said, raising new concerns about her health.

Rights activist Mohammadi, 52, who won the 2023 prize for her campaigning including against the death penalty, has been jailed since November 2021, and has spent much of the past decade in and out of prison.

The Paris-based family of Mohammadi emphasized it had no direct contact with her since her right to make phone calls was cut in November.

But it said it had learned from several other families of detainees held in Evin that clashes erupted on Tuesday as the female prisoners launched a protest in the yard against the executions.

According to rights groups, around 30 convicts were hanged this week, including Gholamreza (Reza) Rasaei, who the Iranian judiciary said was executed on Tuesday in connection with 2022 protests.

"The protest by prisoners against the execution of Reza Rasaei led to a violent crackdown by prison guards and security agents," Mohammadi's family said in a statement late Thursday, citing the reports.

"Several women who stood in front of the security forces were severely beaten. The confrontation escalated, resulting in physical injuries for some prisoners."

The family said that after being punched in the chest, Mohammadi suffered a respiratory attack and intense chest pain, causing her to collapse and faint on the ground in the prison yard.

She was bruised and treated in the prison infirmary but not transferred to a hospital outside, it said.

"We are deeply worried about her health and well-being under these circumstances," the family said.

Iran's prison authority denied that prisoners were beaten and blamed the confrontation on inmates.

Two prisoners "had heart palpitations due to the stress," but medical examinations determined that their general condition "is favorable," it said in a statement, according to the Tasnim news agency.

Relatives and supporters had earlier this month raised new concern about Mohammadi's condition, saying they had been informed of the results of medical tests carried out in July "which showed a worrying deterioration of her health".

In the past eight months, Mohammadi has been suffering from acute back and knee pain, including a herniated spinal disc. In 2021, a stent was placed on her main heart artery due to a blockage.

Mohammadi has kept campaigning even behind bars and strongly supported the protests that erupted across Iran following the September 2022 death in custody of Mahsa Amini, 22-year-old Iranian Kurd arrested for allegedly violating the country's strict dress rules for women.

Mohammadi in June received a new one-year prison term for "propaganda against the state", on top of a litany of other verdicts that already amounted to 12 years and three months of imprisonment, 154 lashes, two years of exile and various social and political restrictions.



Biden, Harris Seek 'Full Accountability' after Killing of US Citizen in West Bank

US President Joe Biden (C-R) and Democratic Presidential nominee and Vice President Kamala Harris (C-L) participate in a wreath laying ceremony on observance of the 23rd anniversary of the 9/11 terror attack at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, USA, 11 September 2024. EPA/SHAWN THEW
US President Joe Biden (C-R) and Democratic Presidential nominee and Vice President Kamala Harris (C-L) participate in a wreath laying ceremony on observance of the 23rd anniversary of the 9/11 terror attack at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, USA, 11 September 2024. EPA/SHAWN THEW
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Biden, Harris Seek 'Full Accountability' after Killing of US Citizen in West Bank

US President Joe Biden (C-R) and Democratic Presidential nominee and Vice President Kamala Harris (C-L) participate in a wreath laying ceremony on observance of the 23rd anniversary of the 9/11 terror attack at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, USA, 11 September 2024. EPA/SHAWN THEW
US President Joe Biden (C-R) and Democratic Presidential nominee and Vice President Kamala Harris (C-L) participate in a wreath laying ceremony on observance of the 23rd anniversary of the 9/11 terror attack at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, USA, 11 September 2024. EPA/SHAWN THEW

US President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday called the Israeli military's killing of an American activist in the Israeli-occupied West Bank "unacceptable" and said Israel must do more to make sure it never happens again.

Israel has taken responsibility for the death of Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, 26, who was killed while taking part in a protest against settlement expansion in the West Bank. Biden said the US government expects continued access to the criminal investigation into the shooting.
"There must be full accountability. And Israel must do more to ensure that incidents like this never happen again," Biden said in a statement.
Harris said in a separate statement that no one should be killed for participating in a peaceful protest.
"The shooting that led to her death is unacceptable and raises legitimate questions about the conduct of IDF (Israel Defense Forces) personnel in the West Bank," she said.
Eygi, who is also a Turkish national, was shot dead on Friday at a protest march in Beita, a village near Nablus where Palestinians have been repeatedly attacked by far-right Jewish settlers. Israel has said her death was accidental.

For her 26th birthday in July, Eygi gathered friends for a bonfire at one of her favorite places, a sandy beach in Seattle where green-and-white ferries cruise across the dark, flat water and osprey fish overhead.

On Wednesday night, hundreds of people traveled to the same beach in grief, love and anger to mourn her.

As the sun set, turning the sky on the horizon a pale orange, friends recalled Eygi as open, engaging, funny and devoted. The crowd spilled beyond a large rectangle of small black, red, green and white Palestinian flags staked in the sand to mark the venue for the vigil.
Many attendees wore traditional checked scarves — keffiyehs — in support of the Palestinian cause and carried photographs of Eygi in her graduation cap. They laid roses, sunflowers or carnations at a memorial where battery-operated candles spelled out her name in the sand.

Eygi's relatives called on Biden and Harris to speak to the family directly and order an independent investigation into her shooting.
To call her death an accident "is complicity in the Israeli military’s agenda to take Palestinian land and whitewash the killing of an American. ... Let us be clear, an American citizen was killed by a foreign military in a targeted attack," the family said in a statement.
Democratic US Senator Patty Murray and Representative Pramila Jayapal wrote a letter to Biden on Wednesday and requested "an immediate, transparent, credible and thorough" independent US investigation.