イランの「監獄」レストラン 借金未払いで収監された人々を支援

【ＡＦＰ＝時事】イラン人の元受刑者２人が、借金を返済できずに収監された人々を救おうと「監獄」レストランを開業し、評判を呼んでいる。（写真は首都テヘランにあるレストラン「第１６号監房」で食事を楽しむ客）
　着想を得たのは、刑務所の中だった。
　「私たちが知り合ったのは警察の留置所です」とベンヤミン・ナカートさん（３１）は話す。首都テヘランで鉄を扱う仕事をしていたが破産してしまったのだという。
　今やビジネス上のパートナーとなった輸出商のアルマン・アリザデさん（３０）も当時、借金で苦しんでいた。
　イランの法律は、小切手の不渡りや、結婚持参金の未払い、銀行融資の未返済には容赦ない。支払いが済むまで債務者は収監されることになっている。
　当局によると、そうしたケースが理由で収監されている人々は現在、イランで１万１０００人を超える。
　ナカートさんとアリザデさんは、出所してから２年後の２０１６年に「第１６号監房」という名のレストランを開業した。それぞれのテーブルは鉄格子で仕切られている。
　「刑務所に入っている人々の中には、罪を犯したというより、運が悪かった人もいます。誰でもそういう目に遭う可能性があります」とナカートさんは言う。
　ソーシャルメディアの後押しもあり、レストランは繁盛している。
　２人は、自分たちと同じような理由で収監されている人々のことを常に気に掛けている。アリザデさんは、「時に寄付を募ったり、客に支援を求めたりしながら、負債を抱えた受刑者を支援しています」と語る。店の売り上げの一部も支援のために使われている。
　友人２人と一緒に来たという客はピザを食べながら、「この店がオープンした時から来ています」と話した。「料理もおいしいけど、刑務所に入れられた人々を助けたいのです」【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2022/03/01-13:32）

Two Iranian ex-prisoners have opened a successful jail restaurant to help raise funds to free convicts languishing behind bars for unpaid debts.
A storefront picture of their Cell 16 diner in eastern Tehran shows a frustrated prisoner holding a chicken leg in one hand and trying with the other to bend the bars of his cell to escape.
The idea of the restaurant was hatched in prison.
I met my partner while we were in police custody, Benyamin Nakhat, 31, told AFP. I was working at the iron market in Tehran but I went bankrupt. I found myself penniless.
His business partner, Arman Alizadeh, a 30-year-old exporter, was also drowning in debt.
Iranian law is harsh on writing cheques that bounce, and on failure to pay agreed dowries or bank loans: it's jail time until the money is repaid.
More than 11,000 Iranians are behind bars for failing to pay their debts, according to prison officials. That is almost five percent of Iran's total prison population.
Two years after their release, the jail time friends opened Cell 16, with its separate dining tables behind bars.
Decorating the place was easy, we just reproduced the place where we'd been held, Nakhat said, smiling. We wanted to show that prison isn't necessarily a place filled with bad guys.
Inmates are sometimes people who haven't committed crimes but have had misfortune. It can happen to anyone.
- Help the prisoners -
With the help of social media, the business has been a success, having first opened in 2016 with just seven cell tables. It has expanded to two more eateries, in Tehran and the central city of Isfahan.
But the owners have not forgotten their comrades in trouble.
We want to help inmates by raising funds, Alizadeh said. We help indebted prisoners by sometimes launching campaigns for help from donors or clients.
We post the requests on our Instagram page and everyone contributes in their own way. Parts of the restaurant's proceeds will also be used to help free prisoners.
He added that it's often the wives of prisoners who seek help. We choose those who seem to us to have priority: for example, a married person with children, or sick persons unable to work to repay a loan.
Several associations and celebrities are involved in such charities.
According to state news agency IRNA, last year $130 million were donated to repay the debts of thousands of prisoners.
Cell 16 also employs newly-released ex-cons.
Accompanied by her two friends, diner Hasti Berjissian, 24, a purchasing manager in a factory, likes the concept.
We've been coming here since it opened, she said, taking a bite of pizza. The food is good but above all, we want to help the prisoners.
In another cell, Shiva Shemshaki, 33, celebrated her husband's birthday.
I come because a friend of ours has been in prison for nine months for unpaid debts, she said. He had bought some goods but, because of inflation, he was ruined.