Kurdish political prisoner Abdolaziz Gol-Mohammadi is now in the 13th day of his hunger strike in Orumiyeh Central Prison in West Azerbaijan Province, raising serious concerns about his deteriorating health.
Today, Gol-Mohammadi’s condition worsened as he experienced a significant drop in blood pressure and severe weakness, the Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) has learned.
The prison medical staff, alarmed by his critical physical condition, attributed it to significant weight loss and a history of stomach bleeding, and declared his ongoing hunger strike a dangerous health risk.
Gol-Mohammadi began his hunger strike on 14 October in protest at the rejection of his request for leave by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Intelligence Organisation.
He has been confined to the prison infirmary for the past week due to his deteriorating condition.
Initially, the prisoner was on a dry hunger strike for the first five days. After being transferred to the infirmary and receiving assurances from the prison authorities that his demands would be considered, he ended the dry hunger strike.
Instead, he declared his intention to continue with a traditional hunger strike until his request for medical leave is granted.
Despite Gol-Mohammadi’s repeated requests to meet with the supervising judge of the prison and formally submit his request for medical leave, the judge has yet to agree to meet with him.
In recent months, the prison authorities and the supervising judge had approved his temporary leave, but the Orumiyeh Prosecutor’s Office made the final decision conditional on the approval of the IRGC’s Intelligence Organisation.
However, the IRGC’s Intelligence Organisation rejected the prisoner’s request.
On 6 October 2019, while Gol-Mohammadi, a Kurdish civilian from Orumiyeh, who had been detained in Orumiyeh Central Prison for several months on non-political charges, was transferred to the IRGC’s Intelligence Organisation’s Al-Mahdi Garrison detention facility.
Gol-Mohammadi and four other Kurdish civilians, Omid Saeidi, Kamran Ghassemi, Nayeb (Masoud) Hajizadeh, and Keyvan Rashozadeh, who were arrested on 8 October 2019, were interrogated for two months on charges of “membership of a Kurdish opposition party”.
There was no prior connection between Gol-Mohammadi and the other four civilians in the case.
After a year of legal limbo, in December 2020, Branch Two of the Islamic Revolutionary Court of Orumiyeh sentenced each of the five civilians to 10 years and one day in prison.
The court accused them of “acting against national security” through their alleged “membership” of the Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan.
After Gol-Mohammadi appealed the verdict, the case was referred to the Supreme Court and, after some time, the verdict was upheld by Branch 41 of the Supreme Court.
On 26 January 2021, Gol-Mohammadi was released on bail of 10 billion rials – nearly 20,000 USD – but was re-arrested seven months later, in August 2021, to serve the sentence.
