Hadi Rostami, a prisoner from Ilam who was previously sentenced to amputation of four fingers of his right hand on the accusation of “theft”, has taped his lips and gone on hunger strike to protest against his continued detention in Bukan Prison and uncertainty of his case in the fifth year of his imprisonment.

Rostami wrote a letter addressed to the Prosecutor’s Office of Bukan, the Amnesty Commission of Iran, and the UN Special Rapporteur on Iran to announce the hunger strike, a part of which reads: “I, Hadi Rostami, have been sentenced to the amputation of four fingers of my right hand and payment of several billion [Iranian Tomans] worth of restitution of property under case number 100403 at Branch 1 of the Criminal Court of West Azerbaijan province. I have been in prison for five years now. I have been severely tortured in the offices of the intelligence ministry in several cities, including Orumiyeh, Ardabil, and Bandar-e Anzali.”

The prisoner further stated in his letter that he was not aware of 20 of the 28 thefts mentioned in his case, and that the court had ordered the brutal amputation of four fingers of his right hand, regardless of his defence in the court. This sentence has been approved in Branch 13 of the Supreme Court of Iran and has been notified to the Enforcement of Judgments Office of Branch 8 of the Public and Revolutionary Court of Orumiyeh for execution.

At the end of the letter, a copy of which has been available to the Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN), Rostami says: “Over the past few years, I have written several letters to the head of the judiciary, stating that the verdict is completely unfair and requesting that my case be reconsidered, but I have not yet received a response. So, I have taped my lips and have gone on hunger strike in objection to this situation.”

According to the statistics compiled by the KHRN, there are currently six prisoners convicted of “theft” and sentenced to amputation of four fingers of a hand. These prisoners are the 33-year-old Hadi Rostami, 37-year-old Mehdi Sharafian, 42-year-old Mehdi Shahivand, 35-year-old Shahab Teymouri, 39-year-old Mehrdad Teymouri, and 40-year-old Kasra Karami.