© Sputnik / Anton Bystrov
"Since 8 July 36,283 prisoners have been released", Haj-Mohammadi said as quoted by Tasnim news agency.
Earlier in July, Iran's judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaeili said that the authorities would continue to reduce the occupancy rate in prisons to avoid the spread of coronavirus among prisoners. According to the official, legislative norms have been enacted for downgrading punishment for certain crimes. This requires the cases of specific prisoners to be reviewed. In addition, he added that the Iranian authorities are currently trying to use other types of punishment rather than imprisonment when possible.
As of 5 May, Iran temporarily released over 114,000 prisoners who were serving their sentences. This, however, did not include prisoners that pose a danger to society.
According to the National Health Ministry, Iran has recorded over 276,000 cases of COVID-19 and about 14,400 fatalities related to the disease.
Comment: As a way of fighting a largely overhyped 'pandemic', this doesn't seem like a smart move. But on the positive side, since these prisoners allegedly don't pose a danger society, many of them probably don't deserve to be in jail in the first place. Prisoner amnesty under the cover of Covid-19? Or just an unintentional positive result of mass hysteria?