Sunni prisoner Abdolbaset Orsan is currently spending the fifth year of his sentence in Vakilabad Prison, Mashhad City. He has hardly seen his family due to their distance from the prison, the high costs of travel and COVID-related restrictions.
According to HRANA, the news agency of Human Rights Activists, Orsan has been deprived of family visitation. An informed source elaborated that in, “the ward where he is housed, under pretext of COVID-19 regulations, family visitation has long been stopped. The prisoners in other wards, however, can have visitations. Since [Orsan] was the sole breadwinner of his family, his family can hardly afford [to support themselves]”.
On October 8, 2017, Ministry of Intelligence agents arrested and held him for 12 months in solitary confinement in one of their detention centers.
In 2019, Branch 1 of the Revolutionary Court of Mashhad sentenced him to 15 years in prison and fined him 55 million tomans (13090 USD) on the charge of “spreading corruption on earth through acting against national security and collaboration with terrorist groups”. He was acquitted from charges of “armed insurrection against the regime (Baghi)”. In 2020, this verdict was upheld on appeal.
In July, Orsan, along with eight other Sunni prisoners in Vakilabad prison, wrote a letter to Javid Rahman, the UN Special Rapporteur on Iran. The open letter both requested that their cases be investigated and mentioned that their confessions have been extracted under torture and pressure upon their families.
Orsan is a Sunni citizen and a resident of Torbat-Jam. He is married and the father of three children.
