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Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Khamenei shuts detention centre

Recent protests in Tehran - 9 July
Thousands of protesters have been detained since the disputed election

Iran's Supreme Leader has ordered the closure of a detention centre where protesters against the recent election result were held.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei closed the centre at Kahrizak because it failed to "preserve the rights of detainees".

Thousands of people were detained for protesting against the 12 June presidential election results.

The highly unusual closure shows how much pressure Iran's leaders are under over detainees, correspondents say.

Prison inquiry

The leader of the judiciary has ordered a review of all cases of those held in prison since the election, and the parliament has set up a committee to investigate the issue.

"Kahrizak is the detention centre which the leader ordered closed because it lacked necessary conditions to preserve rights of detainees," said Kazem Jalali, spokesman of the committee, quoted by the semi-official Mehr news agency.

It is not clear whether the detainees at the Kahrizak centre were released or transferred elsewhere.

There are also continuing reports of grim conditions inside Tehran's main prison, Evin, which seems unable to cope with the large number of opposition supporters rounded up since the election, says the BBC Tehran correspondent Jon Leyne.

In recent days the opposition has reported almost every day new deaths of protestors held in prison.

Prisoner deaths

One of those who died was the 25-year-old son of Abdolhossein Rouhalamini, a close aide to one of the opposition candidates, Mohsen Rezai.

Mohsen Rouhalamini was arrested during a protest on 9 July, was taken to a hospital after two weeks and died, Associated Press news agency reported.

An opposition news web site said he had been held at Kahrizak, and that his face was beaten.

But the head of Tehran prisons, Sohrab Soleimani, said he and another prisoner had died of meningitis.

The death of someone so close to the ruling circle has obviously shocked senior figures in Iran, our correspondent says.

Iran's prisons are notorious for their poor conditions, correspondents report.

Former political prisoners, such as journalists and bloggers, have complained of human rights abuses such as solitary confinement, harsh interrogation tactics and even torture at Evin

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