Jalil Azizpour, a well-known Kurdish athlete in Ilam, western Iran, was released on bail from Ilam Central Prison on 30 January.

Security forces arrested Azizpour after running over him with a car on 29 November 2022.

On 28 January, Azizpour and four other prisoners, Yazdan Ensafmanesh, Babak Karimi, Saman Moradivandan and Armin Kakaei, went on a hunger strike to protest against their continued detention.

After the hunger strike was announced, prison officials threatened to file a new lawsuit on charges of “going on a collective hunger strike” against them. They also denied the prisoners their yard time, visits and shopping from the prison buffet.

Reportedly, the prisoners temporarily ended their strike on the next day, on 29 January.

Azizpour suffered a fractured leg at the time of his arrest and his two teeth were also broken during interrogation. Despite his injuries, prison authorities refused to send him to a hospital outside the prison due to opposition from security agencies.

The athlete was taken to the Ministry of Intelligence detention centre in Ilam while injured. He was subjected to severe physical and psychological torture by security interrogators for a week in order to accept the charges brought against him.

During his arraignment hearing at the Public and Revolutionary Prosecutor’s Office in early December 2022, he said that he had been “forced by torture” to accept the fake scenario planned by the security interrogators.