HRANA News Agency – Keivan Karimi, prominent filmmaker who is imprisoned at ward eight of Evin prison, has been deprived of adequate medical care in the past month despite suffering from a lung infection and bleeding. This prevention of transfer to the hospital is while the doctors of the prison infirmary have visited and examined him for pneumonia and bronchitis, and have ordered his immediate transfer to a hospital outside the prison, but prison authorities have not taken the appropriate measures.
According to the report of Human Rights Activists News Agency in Iran (HRANA), Keivan Karimi, imprisoned filmmaker in ward 8 of Evin prison, has been several times transferred to Evin prison’s infirmary, due to pulmonary bleeding during the past one month.
Doctors of prison infirmary have visited and examined him several times during the last month, for pneumonia and bronchitis, and have ordered his immediate transfer to a hospital outside the prison but prison authorities have not taken the appropriate measures.
It is to say that Mr. Karimi has been visited by the prison infirmary for several times during his imprisonment, but each time he has only received sedative medicines, and so far no serious action has been taken to improve his health condition.
According to a source close to Mr. Karimi, he has been silent about his health condition, but because of his dire state of health, blood coughing and acute respiratory infections, it is seriously necessary for him to receive medical care.
Mr. Karimi was held in the quarantine of ward 4 of Evin prison for about one year after his arrest, and because ward 4 had some restrictions such as lack of sanitary facilities, outdoors area, and being held for a long period of time in quarantine, he has got viral diseases and finally, lung infection.
Keivan Karimi had an operation about 10 years ago because of a tumour on his right leg, and all doctors, inside the prison or in hospitals, believed that he needed this operation to prevent severe bone marrow disease.
Keyvan Karimi was arrested at his home for first time after the movie preview “Writing on City” was released on YouTube. He spent 12 days in solitary confinement in Evin prison and was then released on the bail.
The 6 years imprisonment sentence of Keyvan Karimi caused many international reactions. The first reaction was a statement by a group of philosophers, sociologists, writers and human rights activists, titled “Poetry is a crime against the state”. After that, the National Association directors, screenwriters, actors and factors cinema in France and Italy and the National Association of Italian Film Journalists and Critics in a statement protested against the verdict against Karimi and demanded his punishment be abolished. Also 45 parliamentarians of Europe signed a joint statement, expressed their concerns about Karimi and called his release. In this regard, Punto de Vista festival in collaboration with the Foundation “Navarro” and “Jean Vigo” family, late Polish filmmaker, launched a campaign in support of Keyvan Karimi and invited the 223 world famous director to participate at creating a short film called “word, the whip” to protest against the sentence of 223 lashes for the filmmaker by recording a word by the camera and sending it to festival. On the eve of the sixty-ninth Cannes Film Festival, the documentary section of the festival jury in a press statement called for continued international efforts to abolish the filmmaker’s sentence.
The documentary of Writing on the City is about historical account of the early graffiti in Tehran since 1979 Iranian (Islamic) revolution until Iran’s Green Movement and has been shown in numerous international festivals. The latest one was at the International Film Festival of Vienna in Austria.
Other works of the filmmaker include the film “The Adventures of husband and wife”, “Broken Borders” and his latest film, “drums”. Drum, the first movie made by Keyvan Karimi, was released for the first time at week part of the Venice Film Festival Critics. The movie is about a lawyer whose life changed after receiving the package. In 2016 while filming the movie, Karimi was under security pressure in Tehran because of the condemnation. The movie is his first feature film which was noticed by film critics in Venice. Jean-Michel Frodun, former editor of Cahiers du cinéma named this effect as the Best Film of Venice Film Festival.
Karimi is now in prison to serve his one-year imprisonment sentence.