Iran to re-examine cases of prisoners jailed in 2019 fuel protests

Iran’s judiciary wants to re-examine the cases of protesters that were imprisoned for taking part in widespread demonstrations against a fuel-price hike in November 2019, the semi-official Iranian Students’ News Agency reported.

Gholam-Hossein Mohseni Ejei, the head of Iran’s judiciary, said he’d ordered Tehran’s prosecutor to release or acquit anyone who’d shown good behavior in jail or met certain “qualifications, without giving details, ISNA quoted him as saying in a meeting with the families of prisoners.

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The move comes after protests in Iran’s southwest, oil-rich Khuzestan province killed three people and attracted widespread support from Iranians and prompted demonstrations of support in the city of Tabriz in the country’s northwest.

In November 2019, Khuzestan was gripped by some of the deadliest protests in Iran since the 1979 revolution and rights groups have accused state security forces of having killed hundreds of people at the time.

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