Two days before a fire ripped through a section of Iran's Evin prison and killed at least eight people, a riot police unit arrived at the compound and began to patrol the corridors, shouting "God is Greatest" and banging batons on cell doors, six sources told Reuters.
The patrols at the Tehran jail began without any apparent provocation by inmates, the sources said. These patrols continued from Thursday to Saturday, when some prisoners reacted by shouting for the downfall of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, echoing protests raging across Iran since September.
"Then we heard shots and chants of 'Death to Khamenei' by prisoners in other wards," said an inmate inside ward 8, which holds mostly prisoners convicted of financial crimes.
The prisoner, who was giving his account for the first time, spoke to Reuters on condition he was not named and that no mention was made of the method of communication.
The bloody crackdown by the police and the deadly fire on the evening of Oct. 15, whose origins are disputed, have shaken a society already on edge after a month of violence involving security forces and anti-government protesters.
Reuters interviews with the ward 8 prisoner, as well as a relative of an inmate and four rights activists with contacts at the prison suggest the inmates' anti-government chants were a reaction to the police patrols and that police then responded forcefully to suppress them.
The prisoner and other sources spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity due to concern for their safety.
Reuters was unable to determine why riot police were sent to the jail, what the government's motives were for the crackdown and how the fire started. But it adds to a growing sense of the authorities' determination to crush dissent and avoid losing control of Evin or other places that have been central to the Islamic Republic's grip on society, four rights activists said.
