Prison Authorities Withhold Medical Care from an Ailing Arash Sadeghi

Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) – Per orders from Assistant Prosecutor Rostami, who manages the political prisoners of Rajai Shahr, imprisoned civil rights activist and bone cancer patient Arash Sadeghi has been denied transfer to a hospital despite a severe infection to the surgical site on his arm.

A close source told HRANA that Sadeghi was recently sent to Imam Khomeini hospital after his infection and biopsy results were flagged for concern. “If the infection does not go away, it will lead to a bad outcome for him,” the source said. “Yet it’s been more than two weeks, and Rostami is still ordering that all political prisoners be denied transfers for outside medical treatment.”

Against the orders of his doctor, Sadeghi was returned to prison just three days after a September 12th surgery for chondrosarcoma at Imam Khomeini hospital. His surgical site would contract a severe infection soon after, prompting his return to the hospital September 22nd at noon. Despite his decline into critical condition, he was again returned to prison, reportedly due to the absence of an appropriate specialist to treat him.

Chondrosarcoma is the most prominent malignant bone cancer in youth, affecting an estimated 100 patients per year in Iran. In this type of cancer, malignant tumors are composed of cartilage-producing cells.

Amnesty International issued a statement on Wednesday, September 26, 2018, saying “The Iranian authorities are torturing jailed human rights defender Arash Sadeghi, who has cancer, by deliberately depriving him of the specialist medical care health professionals have said he desperately requires.”

On July 21st of this year, HRANA reported on Sadeghi’s transfer to the hospital under tight security controls. Saying that the doctor was not present, hospital officials turned him away, postponed his scheduled treatment, and returned him to the prison.

Arash Sadeghi was sentenced to 19 years’ imprisonment by Tehran Revolutionary Court. In December 2016, he staged a 72-day hunger strike to protest the continued imprisonment of his wife, Golrokh Iraee.

Political Prisoner Denied Access to an Attorney

Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA)- On August 3rd of this year, Ministry of Intelligence forces arrested Houshmand Alipour and Mohammad Ostadghader, whose taped confessions were broadcast on national television. Since then, Alipour has been cut off from both the services of a lawyer and visits from his family. He stands accused of membership in Kurdish opposition groups.
A family-appointed attorney learned on a phone call with the Sanandaj Intelligence Office that Alipour’s October 4th investigation court date was postponed, an informed source told HRANA. The prosecutor investigator has already interrogated Alipour, who will spend two more weeks at the Intelligence Office. Alipour’s family and lawyer deny rumors that he has been executed, the source said.
Alipour’s brother Hejar added that while Alipour has had contact with his family over the phone, they remain anxious to see him in person, and are worried about his continued interrogation and detention in the absence of any legal defense.
HRANA previously published a letter from Hejar Alipour, in which he pleads his brother’s case.
Alipour is from Sardasht, western Iran.

Kept Apart for 9 Years: a Mother Wishes her Daughter “Happy Birthday” from Evin Prison

Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) – Evin political prisoner Maryam Akbari Monfared wished her daughter a happy 13th birthday in letter she wrote from behind bars, where she has spent every one of her daughter’s birthdays for the past nine years.

Monfared, along with fellow prisoners of conscience Golrokh Ebrahimi Iraee and Atena Daemi, was recently punished with a three-week ban on family visits per verbal orders from the director of the Evin Prison Women’s Ward. All three were told they were being disciplined for protesting authorities’ attempts to unlawfully interrogate them this past September.

The full letter of Monafred’s letter to her daughter, translated into English by HRANA, is below:

In the middle of a cold, rainy December night, they tore you from my arms. You were only three and a half years old, and you had your arms locked around my neck. You were in a deep, angelic sleep.

Nine years have passed since then. All these years, I have celebrated your birthday in the prison visiting room. All my cellmates have shared in my joy. Every year, I prepared for your birthday days ahead of time, as best I could. I have watched you grow from the other side of the visiting room glass, and I drew lines on the concrete for every year that you grew.

While I was in prison you started school, and then you were no longer a little girl. And now, this year, you’re turning 13. We spoke about our wishes a week ago on the phone: you asked me whether you could come for a visit the following week, on your birthday. “Why wouldn’t you?!” I replied. “Of course you can!” Little did I know that our rare joys were being watched with malice from afar.

Before you arrived Wednesday, the Ward Director Ms. Abdolhamidi told me I’d been banned from visits for three weeks. When you came, you jumped into my arms and told me, ‘Mom, it’s my birthday next week! I’ll come to visit you and it will just be you and me.’”

It was more than I could bear to tell you that our visit next week would be canceled. My heart burned with anger and loathing for [the authorities], who would rob even the smile off your face. Flames of rage are still burning inside me.

Tomorrow is your birthday. I’ve been talking to my friends about it all day. I close my eyes and travel back in time to Iran Hospital, October 8th, 2005.

It is 6 a.m., and I am sitting in the hospital lobby. It is 10 days past your due date, but looking back now, it seems you were stalling your arrival in this world, that you foresaw that you would be targeted by the storms of life. But finally, you came, and your very first cries at 12 p.m. brought a smile to my face. I still feel your beautiful face and your first cry, and sense the sweet feeling of taking you into my arms for the first time.

I opened my eyes and there you were, a beautiful doll in a pistachio-green blanket with snowflakes on it. The delight of breastfeeding you, the joy of when you first opened your eyes; the first steps you took towards a beautiful life and future, and the music of your first word.

My dear Nazanin: I was not with you on your 13th birthday. I know that by now you understand why we’re apart. I know that you’ve suffered a lot these past nine years. Yet, we have promised each other to smile until smiles light the faces of all of Iran’s children. We promised each other to cherish our brief visits, for all of the times that we miss being together. We have pledged together to vanquish a monster.

My dear Sara: our future is bright. I hope for the daybreak whose first morning rays will be freedom, when I will tousle your hair and embrace you without the pain and the stress of knowing our visit could end the next moment. Let us laugh until daybreak […]

Maryam Akbari Monfared
October 6, 2018
Evin Prison Women’s Ward

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Maryam Akbari Monfared was arrested December 2009 during protests following Iran’s contentious election cycle of that year. In June 2010, Judge Salavati of Revolutionary Court Branch 15 sentenced her to 15 years in prison on the charge of “moharebeh” (enmity against God), on the premise that she was a member of the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (MEK). Monfared denied the charge.

Two of Monfared’s brothers were executed in 1981 and 1984 for membership in the MEK after being convicted in revolutionary courts. A younger brother and sister were also executed in 1988 as part of a mass execution of political prisoners.

Governance by Deprivation in Evin Prison: 3 in Women’s Ward Denied Visits for 3 Weeks

Human Rights Activist News Agency (HRANA) – On October 2nd, Evin authorities punished three prisoners with a 3-week ban on visitation.

The head of the Evin Women’s Ward dictated the disciplinary measure to prisoners Maryam Akbari Monfared, Golrokh Iraee, and Atena Daemi, reportedly after the three chanted slogans and got involved in a verbal altercation last September in the prison’s visitation room when they had resisted authorities’ attempts to unlawfully interrogate them. The prison’s disciplinary council condemned them to the three-week ban in absentia.

A source told HRANA that Monfared, Iraee, and Daemi got a “no” when they asked to be shown the ban order in writing. The warden offered the pretext that authorities were acting on a verbal order from Prison Chief Chaharmahali and the prosecutors.

Akbari Monfared is a mother of three daughters, two of whom are currently in college and one of whom is school-age. Though her visitation hours were recently slated to change in accordance with her children’s academic schedules, Prosecution Representative Rostami put a stop to the change. She hasn’t had a furlough day in all of her nine years in prison.

Daemi and Iraee got their own backlash from authorities when the prison chief ordered their bodies to be searched multiple times without cause, presumably in reprisal for their public reaction to the September 8th executions of political prisoners Hossein Panahi, Zanyar Moradi, and Loghman Moradi.

Rajai Shahr Authorities Botch Arash Sadeghi’s Recovery from Cancer Surgery

Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA)- Authorities are botching the post-op course of imprisoned civil rights activist Arash Sadeghi, who underwent surgery for bone cancer on September 12th.

While attempting to recover in Rajai Shahr prison of Karaj, Sadeghi contracted an infection on his surgical site. On September 22nd, authorities were adamant about escorting him to the hospital at noon, despite his specialist’s explicit indications that he could only give consultations in the morning.

According to a close source, authorities told Sadeghi that his specialist’s schedule had changed, which upon their arrival at the hospital proved untrue. Sadeghi’s only recourse was a general practitioner, who added 12 antibiotics to his medication regimen.

Sadeghi is currently taking only prescribed antibiotics, and will possibly be transferred to a hospital next week. En route back to Rajai Shahr from his September 22nd consultation, Security Unit Commander Maghsoud Zolfali and Prison Director Gholamreza Ziyai threatened to block his transfer.

HRANA previously reported on Sadeghi’s ongoing medical ordeal.

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Barring Any New Charges, Activist Saeed Shirzad to be Released in 2020

Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) – Rajai Shahr political prisoner Saeed Shirzad will remain in prison through 2020, according to HRANA reports.

His most recent convictions stem from a prison protest that broke out last August among a group of wardmates, including Shirzad, who protested their transfer to an enhanced-security ward under the jurisdiction of Iran’s security establishment. For Shirzad and his fellow prisoners Amir Ghaziani, Saeed Pourheidar, and Ebrahim Firoozi, the protests incurred charges of “destruction of prison property,” ruled in January of 2018 in in Tehran province’s Criminal Court No. 2, Branch 116.

Rather than add prison time for the latter charge, Branch 3 of the Evin Prison Prosecutor’s Office set them a bail of 700 million IRR (approximately $7,000 USD).

In April of that same year authorities gave Shirzad more grief for the protests, issuing him an additional six-month prison term in the same court for “disturbing prison order.”

The “disturbing public order” sentence, along with the enactment of a one-year suspended sentence pursuant to a 2012 arrest, will compound Shirzad’s current five-year sentence by an additional year, slating his release for 2020.

According to HRANA reports, Shirzad’s five-year sentence was ruled on charges of “assembling and colluding against national security,” in connection to civic activities including visits to the families of political prisoners. [Though he began serving this sentence four years ago, it was not finalized until 2017].

Since his arrest in the Tabriz refinery where he worked on June 2nd, 2014, Shirzad’s prison time has been fraught with both oppression and physical pain. On July 11th, 2018, HRANA reported on prison authorities’ refusal to comply with medical orders for more specialized treatment of Shirzad’s lumbar disc disease and spastic lower back inflammation. As authorities continued to reject his requests for the recommended medical transfer — even out of Shirzad’s own pocket — his condition has deteriorated, and he now relies on a walker. HRANA also covered Shirzad’s gestures of protest against his condition and treatment in the system, including hunger strike and sewing his mouth shut.

Due to multiple postponements of his court date, he was also subject to a judicial lag of 15 months between his June 2014 arrest and September 2015 trial in Tehran Revolutionary Court Branch 15, presided by Judge Salavati. During that period he was detained without a conviction first in Evin, and then in Rajai Shahr Prison.

On April 15th, 2017 — a year and half after his already-delayed initial trial — his appeals session convened in Branch 54 of Tehran Appeals Court and ultimately ruled to uphold his 5-year prison sentence.

Shirzad’s rap sheet with authorities dates back to August 21, 2012, when he was arrested and given his one-year suspended sentence for assisting earthquake victims in Ahar, East Azerbaijan province, where he was reportedly involved in the operations of Sarand-based rescue camps. Though he was released on bail 19 days later, his more recent offenses — viewed as a kind of parole violation in the judicial system — kicked the suspended sentence into effect.

Rajai Shahr Prison, where Shirzad is currently held, is located in the northwestern Tehran suburb of Karaj.

Tyranny in Rajai Shahr Prison

Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) – Rajai Shahr prisoner Majid Khoshdasht received a beating today, October 3rd from Warden Hassan Kord, punishment for having complained about two prison personnel who assaulted him earlier this morning.

An informed source told HRANA that Khoshdasht was returning to Ward 1 from the prison shop when he was accosted by prison personnel Khanjani and Borzouie, who dealt injuries to his head, eyes, and ears.

Khoshdasht reached out to his warden Hassan Kord, who rather than addressing the violent episode “beat him and returned him to the ward,” a close source said, adding “although he is in bad shape, with injuries to his head and face, and severe injuries to his eye and ear, he has yet to receive medical attention.”

Unprovoked attacks by Rajai Shahr personnel — and Hassan Kord in particular — are not without precedent, and one prisoner told HRANA that seven had occurred in the past month. The physical and psychological pressures of Ward 1’s mobster-and-crony social order have driven prisoners there to hunger strike or suicide, according to HRANA reports: on September 12th of this year, Ali Ahmadi, held in Ward 1, committed suicide to escape incessant harassment from prisoners doing Kord’s bidding; on July 9th, an assault by Rajai Shahr personnel left broke prisoner Behrouz Hosseini’s left wrist and right tibia. Along with fellow prisoner Abbas Yousodi, Hossein had already been beaten in May of last year by Rajai Shahr’s internal manager. Goaded by prisoners, the manager reportedly doubled down on his attack, severely injuring Hosseini and Yousodi.

Rajai Shahr authorities roughed up Sunni prisoner Hamza Darvish this past May, aggressively intimidating him from speaking critically of those in charge. At the time of being accosted, Darvish was in handcuffs and shackles, mid-transfer to a medical examiner who was to treat him for health issues incurred during an extended hunger strike.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has sloganeered against civil rights repressions, publishing a Civil Rights Charter and verbally pushing for the comprehensive implementation of its provisions. Article 64 of the charter reads, “anyone arrested, convicted, or imprisoned is entitled to their civil rights, including proper nutrition, clothing, health and medical care, educational and cultural services, religious worship and practices.” Thus far, though, Rouhani’s rhetoric has yet to materialize into concrete initiatives.

A Dismal Prison: a Brief Report on Conditions at Dezful

Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) – The gnawing pang of hunger, the festering of dirty sores, and the dread of what might happen if you look at the warden sideways. For the 1,300 people currently detained in Dezful Prison, these are private, everyday torments to which authorities there are less than sympathetic.

Indeed, one of Dezful’s most darkly effective forms of punishment, a former prison functionary told HRANA, is an administration seemingly devoid of humanity. “A while ago, Mr. Postchi, the general manager of the Khuzestan Province Prison system, came in for inspection,” the functionary said. His response to the complaints of malnourished prisoners about the deplorable sleeping conditions? “He told the prisoners, ‘You’re wearing out the beds with how much you eat and sleep.’”

The cruel irony of the system manager’s comments could not be lost on prisoners’ family members, who expressed distress at the nutritional deficits of the Dezful canteen. “For a period of one week, rice was omitted from their diet, and during that time they didn’t even have bread to eat,” one family member said. A former Dezful prisoner elaborated, “the prison food is very low-quality, and the prison store doesn’t even stock bread that the prisoners can buy themselves to stave off their hunger.”

Currently populated at a few hundred inmates above its maximum capacity, Dezful lacks more than adequate food stores. Without a medical professional on site, it packs the medical consultations of its 1300 prisoners into half-hour windows every two days in which medical professionals swing by the prison. Hygienically, conditions are ripe for disease: each ward houses 300 people for every five showers and six toilets, and when night falls ward floors are crowded with the sleeping bodies of those who weren’t lucky enough to get a bed.

According to eyewitness reports, one rare vestige of prisoner autonomy is their power to appease, as best they can, those who have authority to make their bad conditions worse. “No one dares complain in this prison,” the former Dezful prisoner related to HRANA, revealing that the sense of humanity in Ward 6 was particularly tenuous. “If a prisoner disagrees with Ward’s internal administrator [Mr. Daneshyar], he will be beaten by prisoners, who are goaded by the administrator […] then the prisoner will be moved, on Daneshyar’s orders, to another Ward.”

Still, prisoner’s control over their day-to-day fate is ultimately limited: beatings ordered on prisoners because of their legal charges, or even their general disposition, are reportedly routine.

These conditions have driven so many to self-harm that authorities have removed the bathroom mirrors, making shaving difficult, the former inmate said; one more mundane task of self-care that from within the walls of Dezful seems a faraway luxury.

Dezful Prison has nine wards. It is located in Khuzestan Province on the outskirts of Dezful. The current head of the prison is Mr. Azadeh, and his deputy is Mr. Noghrehchi.

Young Urmia Prisoner Suffers TBI in Beating from Prison Warden

Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA)- After a beating from internal prison director Bayramzadeh left him with a concussion, Javad Shirzad (a.k.a Arash), a prisoner in Urmia Central Prison’s youth ward, was transferred to an outside hospital for treatment.

An informed source told HRANA that Shirzad, who is in the fifth year of his sentence, went to another prisoner’s cell to say hi when Bayramzadeh began assaulting him.

According to the source, Shirzad was transferred on September 11th to an outside care facility where a battery of tests including an electroencephalogram (EEG) led to a diagnosis of traumatic brain injury. “He is still under supervision per the doctor’s orders,” the source said.

Prison officials have a long history of mistreating and assaulting prisoners with impunity. This past May, former IRGC 3rd Lieutenant Saeed Nouri reportedly sustained a beating by two prison guards inside the office of the prison’s internal director; and in July, a warden assaulted Saeed Seyyed Abbasi for arriving late to the prison yard for recreation time. Despite Abbasi’s injuries, he was subsequently transferred to solitary confinement without receiving any medical attention.

Forty prisoners object to Namegh Mahmoudi’s beating

HRANA News Agency – After Namegh Mahmoudi was beaten and denied proper medical care in Rajaie Shahr Prison, forty political prisoners  wrote a letter to the warden to voice their objection.
According to a report by Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), on May 26, 2013, Mahmoudi was beaten en route to hospital where he was to receive tests before his surgery. Continue reading “Forty prisoners object to Namegh Mahmoudi’s beating”