Cartoon 114: Prison Overcrowding

In an interview with IRNA, Reza Mahboubi, Deputy Director of the Interior Ministry’s Social Affairs Center said that five hundred thousand new inmates and detainees enter Iran’s prison system each year. Official records indicate, however, that the occupancy capacity in Iranian prisons is 140,000 inmates and Iran currently has 225,000 inmates. Despite crowd density and overcrowding in Iranian prisons, which lead to violations of the basic prisoner rights, no serious steps for improvement of existing conditions have been taken over the recent years. This is Iranian cartoonist Touka Neyestani’s take on the issue.