Hassan Omarpour, a Kurdish prisoner serving a 10-year sentence in Orumiyeh Central Prison, began a hunger strike on 14 April to demand a retrial and to protest insults against his family by the prosecutor of Orumiyeh, West Azerbaijan Province.
The Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) has learned that Omarpour was transferred to solitary confinement on 15 April following the start of his hunger strike and is being denied communication with his family.
The prisoner’s family had sought his release on furlough in recent days, but were met with insults and disrespect by Orumiyeh Prosecutor Hassan Majidi.
Omarpour and nine others were arrested by agents of the Ministry of Intelligence in Orumiyeh between autumn 2021 and early 2022 and physically tortured for months in solitary confinement in the ministry on charges of “participation in intelligence cooperation and espionage for Israel”.
In March 2023, Omarpour was sentenced to ten years in prison by Branch Three of the Islamic Revolutionary Court in Orumiyeh, presided over by Judge Najafzadeh, on charges of “participation in intelligence cooperation and espionage for Israel”.
Four of his co-defendants were sentenced to death and executed in Orumiyeh Central Prison on 29 December 2023.
On 28 February 2024, prison guards raided the political and religious prisoners’ section of Orumiyeh Central Prison on the orders of Peyman Khanzad, the head of the prison, destroying prisoners’ belongings and beating some of them.
At the same time as the raid, Omarpour set himself on fire in protest at his unjust 10-year sentence, the execution of four fellow prisoners and the general pressure on inmates in the ward.
