WASHINGTON: The United States has called for Iran to release all American prisoners held in the country as the coronavirus outbreak reportedly spreads through its prisons.“The United States will hold the Iranian regime directly responsible for any American deaths. Our response will be decisive,” US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement.
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“Reports that Covid-19 has spread to Iranian prisons are deeply troubling and demand nothing less than the full and immediate release of all American citizens.
“Their detention amid increasingly deteriorating conditions defies basic human decency.”
Iran’s response to the deadly coronavirus outbreak, including temporarily releasing 70,000 prisoners, was “too little, too late,” a UN rights expert said.
Javaid Rehman, the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in Iran, said Tehran was trying to “fudge” its handling of the outbreak, one of the deadliest outside China, where the disease originated.
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“The situation on coronavirus is highly disturbing within Iran,” Rehman told reporters at the UN in Geneva.
Iran on Tuesday reported 54 new deaths in the past 24 hours, the highest single-day toll since the start of the outbreak there. That brought the numbers killed in the country to 291 out of 8,042 infected. –AFP
