Kurdish political prisoner Kamal Sharifi, who has been serving the 13th year of his 30-year prison sentence in internal exile in Minab Prison of Hormozgan province, has suffered a heart attack last week and hospitalised for four days. He has been returned to prison before the completion of his treatment, sources told the Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN).
A relative of the political prisoner confirmed the news to the KRHN and said Sharifi suffered a heart attack on 1 March, and was taken to a hospital in the city. “But after being hospitalized for four days, despite the need for continued medical care and completion of the course of treatment, he was returned to prison on Friday, 5 March, not having recovered completely.”
According to this relative, the doctors of Abolfazl Hospital in Minab have requested that Sharifi be transferred to a medical centre in Bandar Abbas due to lack of facilities to carry out angiography in Minab, but no action has been taken so far. The political prisoner had previously suffered a stroke after being internally exiled to Minab Prison.
Kamal Sharifi, who comes from Saqqez, was arrested by the forces of the Intelligence Office on 25 May 2008. Security forces opened fire while arresting him and killed one of his companions. He was interrogated for six months in the detention centre of the Intelligence Office of Sanandaj on charges of “membership in the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan” and was subjected to physical and mental torture to make forced confessions.
On 10 November 2008, Branch 1 of the Islamic Revolutionary Court of Saqqez, presided over by Judge Shayegh, sentenced Sharifi to 30 years in prison and internal exile to Minab Prison on charges of “enmity against God” through an armed uprising against the Islamic government and membership in the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP-Iran), citing Articles 186 and 190 of the Iranian Islamic Penal Code.
According to the indictment, a copy of which is available to the KHRN, the political prisoner “does not have the right to associate and interact with others while serving his sentence and is denied of the benefits of meeting and corresponding with others. He also has to serve the entire sentence in prison”.
Since his arrest, Kamal Sharifi has only once been able to meet with his family. The meeting was made possible with him going on hunger strike after his transfer to Minab Prison.
