Kurdish prisoner of conscience Iraj Sofi-Mohammad has been on hunger strike since 22 May after being removed from an open prison facility in Mahabad, West Azerbaijan Province. His health is reported to be deteriorating.
The Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) has learned that Sofi-Mohammad, who is from Mahabad and was serving a 10-year sentence in the city’s open prison, was transferred to the general ward of the same prison on 15 May without explanation from the authorities.
He began his hunger strike in protest at the transfer and the loss of open prison conditions.
On 27 May, prison officials sent the prisoner on exile to Miandoab Prison, where he remains on hunger strike.
His physical condition has become concerning on the 19th day of the strike, and authorities at both Mahabad and Miandoab prisons have so far failed to respond to his request to be returned to the open facility.
This is not his first protest. Earlier in May, he staged another brief hunger strike following his transfer.
Sofi-Mohammad was initially arrested by security forces in autumn 2019. After initial interrogation, he was transferred from the Ministry of Intelligence detention centre in Orumiyeh, West Azerbaijan province, to the city’s central prison.
In May 2020, Branch Two of the Islamic Revolutionary Court of Orumiyeh, presided over by Judge Ali Sheikhlou, sentenced him to 15 years in prison on charges of “acting against national security” through “membership of religious extremist groups”.
The Supreme Court later overturned the sentence and commuted it to ten years imprisonment.
On 31 July 2021, Sofi-Mohammad went on hunger strike for 16 days in protest at the prison authorities’ opposition to his transfer to Mahabad.
After a few weeks, he was transferred to Mahabad open prison, where he has been a working prisoner ever since.
Sofi-Mohammad was also arrested in 2017, and sentenced to 18 months in prison by Branch One of the Islamic Revolutionary Court of Orumiyeh.
In 2018, he was released from Orumiyeh Central Prison after serving his sentence.
