Prisoners at a facility in southwestern Khuzestan province started a fire Friday to protest a death sentence issued against a fellow inmate.

According to Iranian state news agencies, "Following the announcement of the death sentence of a prisoner in Ramhormoz prison, several prisoners started a riot by starting a fire.”

"Gunfire could be heard from outside the prison," Mehr News said. 

Gholamreza Roshan, the director-general of Khuzestan’s prisons, told a reporter with IRGC-affiliated Fars news that the unrest occurred after a convict was given a death sentence for murder.

"Some inmates in the same ward as the condemned individual instigated the unrest under the pretext of defending him," he added.

He also claimed that immediate action was taken by prison authorities, and the situation in the prison is under control. However, there was no independent assessment of the situation.

Earlier in the month, another fire was reported in a prison near the capital Tehran on the anniversary of Mahsa Amini, whose death triggered the biggest anti-regime protests in Iran. State media said female convicts on death row set fire to the women's ward at the Qarchak penitentiary by burning their clothes.

Also on that day, detainees in the women's ward of Tehran's Evin Prison gathered in protest to mark the occasion, chanting slogans against the regime, refusing to enter their cells, and setting fire to their headscarves in the prison courtyard.