Half of Iran govt employees to work remotely

President Hassan Rouhani said on Tuesday about half of all Iranian government employees were staying at home as part of measures to contain the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in the Middle East’s worst-affected country, state television reported.

“Many government employees will continue to work from home but civil servants with sensitive jobs that are vital for the public will be allowed to work from the office,” said Rouhani. “The aim is to keep more people at home.”

The death toll from the respiratory pandemic in Iran increased by 122 to 1,934 on Tuesday, among a total of 24,811 infections, according to Health Ministry spokesman Kianush Jahanpur.

Rouhani added that to curb the spread of coronavirus, a temporary release of prisoners announced earlier this month would be extended by 15 days to April 19. On March 17, the Iranian judiciary said it had temporarily freed about 85,000 people from jail, including political prisoners, in response to the spread of coronavirus.

The UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in Iran, Javaid Rehman, said on March 9 that he had asked Tehran to free all political prisoners temporarily from the country’s overcrowded and disease-ridden jails amid the outbreak.

According to a report Rehman submitted to the Human Rights Council in January, Iran said it had 189,500 people in prison. Meanwhile, the UN rights chief called on Tuesday for any sanctions imposed on countries like Iran facing the new coronavirus pandemic to be “urgently re-evaluated” to avoid pushing strained medical systems into collapse.

“At this crucial time, both for global public health reasons, and to support the rights and lives of millions of people in these countries, sectoral sanctions should be eased or suspended,” Michelle Bachelet said.