Two Kurdish political prisoners went on a one-week-long hunger strike in Iran’s Orumiyeh Central Prison to protest against being jailed with dangerous criminal prisoners, a local human rights source told Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN).
“Kurdish political prisoner Rahman Rashidzade begun his hunger strike on 14 January two days after Kurdish political prisoner Mostafa Sabzi went on hunger strike on 12 January. The two political prisoners protested against being imprisoned with dangerous criminal prisoners, and they were transferred to solitary confinement while on hunger strike,” the source said.
“Late in the evening on 16 January Sabzi was transferred from solitary to the prison’s health centre due to the deterioration of his health and the medical authorities e requested that he ends his hunger strike and connect saline solution water to his body,” the source said.
“Sabzi had rejected the request and insisted that he would end his hunger strike once he is transferred to Ward 12, the political prisoners’ ward. Nonetheless, the officers had returned him to the solitary confinement cell after his medical examinations had been completed,” the source said.
Previously, two other political prisoners Bahman Dalayi Milan and Rauof Mohamad Ali had gone on hunger strike for the same reason at the same prison.
The source added: “Sabzi was imprisoned with dangerous criminal prisoners in Ward 13, where he found himself in a very difficult situation. He repeatedly requested that he is transferred to the Ward 12 of the political prisoners but the prison authorities had rejected his demand. And, he had been beaten the week before his hunger strike for having spent few minutes at Ward 12.”
The two Kurdish political prisoners finally ended the one-week-long hunger strike after the prison officials promised them relocation to Ward 12 of the political prisoners. However, they were both sent back to be jailed at Ward 13 with dangerous criminals after they ended the strike.
The Iranian Revolutionary Guards arrested 20-year-old Sabzi from the city of Maku in June 2014 in a village near the city of Orumiyeh.
He was interrogated and tortured in a security detention centre In Orumiyeh before being transferred to the Orumiyeh Central Prison.
He was sentenced to 15 years in prison for alleged membership in the Party For Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK).
Rashidzade from the city of Orumiyeh has been detained in the youth ward.
Iranian security forces arrested him in the beginning of last year and the Orumiyeh Islamic Revolutionary Court sentenced him to three years in prison in August 2015.
