Iran: 600,000 jailed since start of year

[Phx_Dem]

Well over half a million Iranians have been imprisoned by their regime since the start of the year, Director-General of the Cultural and Disciplinary Committee of the Iranian Prisons Organization Mansour Moqareh-Abed told Iranian newspaper Jomhouri Islami.

The interview was cited by the website of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), an umbrella organization for Iranian opposition groups in exile.

According to the NCRI, Moraqeh-Abed added in the interview that "it is not possible to accommodate 'the cultural and disciplinary' needs of this many prisoners."

The NCRI noted that "everyday 2,600 people are sent to prison; thus, in a year the figure grows to 1 million," a figure described as an "unprecedented world record."

The NCRI added in its statement: "Obviously, the actual number of detainees in Iran is much higher than the official figure since it does not take into account various unofficial penitentiaries and prisons.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3343931,00.html
http://www.ncr-iran.org/content/view/2665/69/

[magellan]

1. That's obscene

And even more worrying, Bush** would like nothing better than to "liberate" them.

[leftchick]

2. "U.S. Jail Population Hits New High"

What is the difference?

:shrug:

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2004/07/26/552/95424

U.S. Jail Population Hits New High
By Jeralyn, Section Crime Policy
Posted on Sun Jul 25, 2004 at 11:09:36 PM EST
Tags: (all tags)
According to a new report from the Department of Justice, 3.2% of America's adult population is in jail or on probation or parole. That's 6.9 million people. The number of adults in our correctional population increased by more than 130,000 this year, even though there was no corresponding increase in the crime rate.

Experts say the numbers reflect the "get tough on crime" laws of the 90's. This would be a good time for the Democrats to change course and focus on prevention and treatment as alternatives to prison for non-violent drug offenders. We got our copy of the Democratic Platform today. What does it say about prisons and sentencing laws? Nothing that we could find.



http://usgovinfo.about.com/cs/censusstatistic/a/aaprisonpop.htm


"U.S. Prison Population Tops 2 Million"

in 142 US residents now in prison
America's prison population topped 2 million inmates for the first time in history on June 30, 2002 according to a new report from the Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS).
The 50 states, the District of Columbia and the federal government held 1,355,748 prisoners (two-thirds of the total incarcerated population), and local municipal and county jails held 665,475 inmates.

By midyear 2002, America's jails held 1 in every 142 U.S. residents. Males were incarcerated at the rate of 1,309 inmates per 100,000 U.S. men, while the female incarceration rate was 113 per 100,000 women residents.

Of the 1,200,203 state prisoners, 3,055 were younger than 18 years old. In addition, adult jails held 7,248 inmates under 18.

[magellan]

3. While those figures don't say much for our "corrections" system

...which is a terribly flawed thing, according to the OP we aren't jailing people at anywhere near the rate Iran currently is.

edit grammar

[angstlessk]

4. This is from the official 'opposition' group, just like Chalabi's when he stated

unequivically...Sadaam had WMD including Nuclear capacity...no different.

[Roland99]

5. And about double that KILLED in the Sudan while the world twiddled its thumbs

[dave_p]

6. Sounds fishy to me

I'd like to see it from a more direct source.

Last February prison chief Ali Akbar Yassaqi put the then current prison population at 130,118.

The two estimates aren't incompatible if the average jail term was 2-3 months. But then it loses some of its impact as a brutal clampdown.

Maybe the regime isn't a wholly reliable source. But neither's the MeK.