Iran: Call to save the lives of five political prisoners on hunger strike

                

NCRI - The Iranian Resistance calls to save the lives of five political prisoners in Ghezel-Hessar and Gohardasht prisons in Karaj. It also asks all international authorities and human rights organizations to take urgent action to consider the demands of these prisoners, to stop antihuman pressures against them, and to abolish death sentence for four of them.

Four Kurdish Sunni prisoners by the names of Hamed Ahmadi, Kamal Malai, and Jamshid and Jahangir Dehghani (two brothers) are in dire physical conditions due to having been on hunger strike for 35 days. They were accused and sentenced to death only for their religious beliefs and being charged with ‘propagating against the state, corrupt on Earth and Moharebeh (waging war on God)’ by the mullahs’ judiciary. They went on hunger strike after they were transferred from Gohardasht to Ghezel- Hessar prison to be executed. These four prisoners had also gone on hunger strike for 75 days four and a half months ago in protest at issuing their death penalty.

The four prisoners on hunger strike have lost weight for 10-15 kilograms and their blood pressure has dropped to 6-8. Each of them has already gone unconscious several times and the period of their unconsciousness has also increased. In addition to psychological tortures, they suffer pain in their waist and kidneys, blurred vision and severe stomach hemorrhage. Having on the clothes of prisoners on death row and being humiliated, they are kept in dark and narrow crypts without minimum facilities. In the hot summer weather, the prison guards avoid giving cold water to these prisoners who are also fasting, even at the time of breaking their fast. In order to justify their antihuman behavior, the prison guards say to the prisoners, “we have no responsibility before you, because you were brought here temporarily and just for executing your death penalty.”
The regime’s agents such as Khodabakhshi, the judge supervising the prison; Sohrab Soleimani, General Head of Tehran prisons; and Ali Hosseini, head of Ghezel-Hessar prison; do not give any response to the follow-ups by the afflicted families of these prisoners, and just waste their time by giving false answers.

The physical condition of Reza Shahabi, a political prisoner and a member of Tehran Bus Company Syndicate, has also deteriorated due to being on hunger strike for 48 days. During past days when he was taken to hospital for his very poor condition, his hands had been cuffed to his bed. Reza Shahabi is on hunger strike since June 1st in protest at transferring him from ward 350 of Evin prison to Gohardasht prison. Mullahs’ intelligence agents have barred his visitation with his family members. His waist and neck have been harmed seriously due to tortures, yet the torturers prevent him from going under surgery despite doctors’ recommendation.

In the meantime, Mr. Mohammad Amin Agoushi, a political prisoner and a retired teacher, has been transferred to the confinement cell of isolation ward, where is nothing but a torture chamber, since last week. He has been on hunger strike since July 8th in protest at being exiled to Zahedan central prison.