Kamran Ghassemi and Keyvan Rashozadeh, two political prisoners from Orumiyeh, West Azerbaijan Province, were conditionally released on 5 October after serving five years in Orumiyeh Central Prison, the Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) has learned.
Ghassemi had been on hunger strike since 25 September in protest at the authorities’ refusal to grant him conditional release.
Both men were released on 5 October, but Ghassemi, who had spent 11 days in solitary confinement during his hunger strike, was taken directly to hospital after his release.
Ghassemi had previously gone on a nine-day hunger strike on 5 March over similar complaints about the authorities’ rejection of his requests for conditional release and temporary leave.
The duo were arrested by security forces in October 2019, along with two others,, Omid Saeidi and Nayeb (Masoud) Hajizadeh, and taken to the Al-Mahdi detention facility of the Intelligence Organisation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in Orumiyeh.
After a month of interrogation, they were transferred to the youth section of Orumiyeh Central Prison, where they remained in limbo for a year.
In December 2020, the Islamic Revolutionary Court in Orumiyeh sentenced the two men, along with their co-defendants, to 10 years and one day in prison on charges of “acting against national security” for their alleged membership of the Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan.
After their “submission to the verdict”, their sentences were reduced to seven years and six months.
In Decemer 2020, the two men, together with another Kurdish political prisoner, Omid Saeidi, went on a week-long dry hunger strike to protest against the uncertainty of their situation, the pressure from the Ministry of Intelligence and the failure of the prison authorities to respect the principle of separation of crimes in the juvenile section of Orumiyeh Central Prison.
Rashozadeh also sewed his lips shut during a hunger strike in June 2022 in protest at the refusal of the prison authorities and the Ministry of Intelligence to grant him leave.
He also went on hunger strike on 17 April 2024 to protest against torture by prison guards and again to protest against the authorities’ refusal to grant him conditional release.
On the 11th day of Rashozadeh’s latest hunger strike, his mother, Nazdar Roudsaz, publicly expressed her concern for his health, claiming that her son had been tortured by prison guards while handcuffed and shackled.
