The head of Naghadeh Prison in Iran’s northwestern province of West Azerbaijan has rejected the transfer of the ill Kurdish political prisoner Mohammad Moradi to a hospital outside the prison for treatment.
Moradi has been in poor physical condition for more than half a year due to hernia.
The prison head’s refusal comes despite the prison medical doctors’ advice about the need for Moradi’s treatment in a hospital outside the prison, and the consent of the judge who oversees the prison.
According to a source close to the political prisoner, Habib Mohammadi, the new head of Naghadeh Prison, visited wards of the prison in the past few days. During the visits, Moradi has asked again to be taken to the hospital for surgery and the head of the prison has replied: “You will not be transferred to the hospital even if you are dying. You will not be sent because you are counter-revolutionary.”
Mohammad Moradi, a resident of Qabar Hoseyn village of Piranshahr, West Azerbaijan province, was arrested on 22 April 2018 upon his entry to the country from the Kileh border crossing in Sardasht by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in Piranshahr, after his family coordinated his return from Iraqi Kurdistan to Iran with the IRGC.
After his arrest, he was taken to the detention centre of the Intelligence Organisation of the IRGC in Orumiyeh.
He was subjected to the most severe tortures for 45 days in this detention centre to make forced confessions about his alleged “membership in the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (KDPI) and return to Iran for armed operations”.
On 12 May 2021, Branch 1 of the Islamic Revolutionary Court of Mahabad, West Azerbaijan province, sentenced Moradi to 40 years in prison and internal exile to Orumiyeh Central Prison. It charged the political prisoner with “armed insurrection” (baghi) through “membership in the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (KDPI)”.
In October 2021, Branch 34 of the country’s Supreme Court referred the case to Branch 1 of the Islamic Revolutionary Court of Mahabad for review due to the insufficiency of the case file. The case is still under review.
Moradi, 35, is married and has two children. He is also the brother of two kolbars Sadegh Moradi and Abdolrahman Moradi who were shot and tortured to death by the IRGC forces in the Kotran border area in the Qandil Mountains in October 2019.
