PARIS, Oct 17, 2022 (BSS/AFP) - Eight Iranian inmates were killed in a fire

that raged through Tehran's notorious Evin prison, the judiciary said Monday,
doubling the official toll from the blaze that further stoked tensions one
month into protests sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini.

Authorities in the Islamic republic have blamed the fire late Saturday on
"riots and clashes" among prisoners, but human rights groups said they
doubted the official version of events and also feared the real toll could be
even higher.

The judiciary authority's website Mizan Online said Monday that four Evin
prison inmates injured in the fire had died in hospital, after reporting the
previous day an initial toll of four dead from smoke inhalation.

Gunshots and explosions were heard during the dramatic blaze from inside the
complex as flames lit up the night sky and smoke billowed from the building,
in video footage posted on social media channels.

The Iranian authorities have accused "thugs" of torching a prison clothing
depot and reported clashes between prisoners, and then between inmates and
guards who intervened to put an end to the violence.

Hundreds of the protesters arrested in recent weeks have been sent to Evin,
infamous for the ill-treatment of political prisoners, which also holds
foreign detainees and thousands jailed on criminal charges.

The official IRNA news agency, citing a Tehran prosecutor, said the clashes
had "nothing to do with the recent unrest in the country", while Mizan said
that all those who died had been convicted of robbery.

But Oslo-based group Iran Human Rights (IHR) said it "rejects" the official
account, given the "long history of concealing facts" in the Islamic
republic.

It said it had "received reports that special forces were deployed to incite
prisoners and set the grounds for a crackdown" and called for a UN-backed
international investigation to establish the facts.

Prisoners' relatives and rights groups have voiced grave fears for the
inmates and said Iranian security forces had used tear gas inside the
correctional facility.

- 'Big distress' -

The fire came after four weeks of protests over the death of 22-year-old
Amini, following her arrest for allegedly violating Iran's strict dress code
for women.

The wave of demonstrations has turned into a major anti-government movement,
confronting Iran's clerical leadership with one of its biggest challenges
since the ousting of the shah in 1979.

More protests were held Sunday, including at the Tehran and Shariati
universities where women chanted "we are all Mahsa!", followed by more
overnight rallies in some other areas of the capital.

Iranian rights activist Atena Daemi, herself a long-time inmate of Evin,
wrote on Twitter that in the early hours of Sunday several buses and
ambulances were seen leaving the facility.

She said some prisoners in Ward 8, which houses political detainees, had been
transferred to another jail.

IHR reported that inmates' relatives gathered outside Evin on Sunday, seeking
information about their loved ones.

Activists noted further confusion when state television announced Sunday that
40 people had been killed, only to correct this back to the initial toll of
four just minutes later.

Evin prison holds French-Iranian academic Fariba Adelkhah and US citizen
Siamak Namazi, whose family said he was taken back into custody days ago
after a temporary release. Namazi's US attorney Jared Genser said he had
spoken to his family, and that he was unharmed.

France said it was following "with the greatest attention" the situation of
its citizens "arbitrarily detained" in Evin.

Supporters of Austrian prisoner Massud Mossaheb said he was suffering after
inhaling smoke and tear gas, writing on Twitter that "he can barely speak...
He is in big distress".

- 'Inciting chaos' -

European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said the bloc expected
"maximum transparency on the situation" at Evin.

The EU has agreed to level new sanctions, a move expected to be endorsed by
its foreign ministers Monday.

At least 108 people have been killed by security forces in the crackdown on
the Amini protests, and at least 93 more died in separate clashes in Zahedan,
Sistan-Baluchestan province, according to IHR.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi on Sunday accused US President Joe Biden of
"inciting chaos" after Biden expressed support for the protests, while the
head of the Revolutionary Guards accused the West of a cultural "invasion" of
Iranian schools.

"The riots are a path that has come from strategic think tanks in America and
England which has spread to our classrooms," the Guards' Sepah News website
quoted Major General Hossein Salami as saying.

The crackdown has seen the arrest of hundreds of ordinary protesters and also
dozens of civil society figures, including journalists, filmmakers and even
athletes.

Prominent Iranian lawyer Saeid Dehghan wrote on Twitter that a total of 19
lawyers who had been working to defend those arrested had themselves been
detained.