Official Claims Half of Prisoners in Iran ‘Involved With Drugs’

Iraj Kakavand, the anti narcotic police chief of Iran, said on Wednesday that approximately half of the country’s prisoners are involved in drugs or narcotics.

His comments, implying a lack of monitoring in prisons where drug use prevails, come as human rights group report that the prison system in Iran is highly controlled and violence, rape, and torture by the Islamic Republic agents prevail.

Iran Wire claimed in 2020 that cheap, mass-produced narcotics are distributed among prisoners. Activists such as Leila Hosseinzadeh, who has since been released, said that systematic drugging of prisoners is also rife. After a fight between two prisoners, she said "a pill was placed into the mouth of one of them so that they could not speak for a few days.”

Moreover, the latest claims come against the backdrop of execution as punishment for drug-related crimes in Iran’s judiciary system, a practice that analysts say is political in nature.

According to Iran Human Rights Organization Director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, drug-related executions are "aimed at instilling fear and preventing more protests" and have been carried out "without any political cost or consequences."

Amnesty International reported in April that Iran executed at least 853 people in the last year, marking the highest number in eight years. Drug-related offenses accounted for more than half of these executions.

In April, more than 80 human rights organizations called on the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) to demand from Iran that drug-related executions cease as a condition of its cooperation.

Prisoners who have been charged with drug offenses in Iran are sentenced to death for “torture-tainted confessions, without due process and fair trial rights and often without access to a lawyer,” according to their statement.

According to Amiry-Moghaddam, UNODC has kept silent about the rise in drug-related executions in the country while it has partnered with Tehran to combat drug trafficking.