Kurdish political prisoner Ramazan Ahmad Kamal has ended a three-day hunger after t Tehran’s general attorney issued a permit allowing him to receive medical treatment at a hospital outside of the prison.
Kamal is a political prisoner in Iran but he originally comes form the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobane.
He went on hunger strike from his cell at the Rajaee Shahr prison in Iran’s Karaj on 20 February.
The prison authorities took him to the prison’s health centre on 23 February.
He ended his hunger strike after director of the health centre informed him that Tehran attorney had issued a permit for him to receive medical treatment at a hospital outside of the prison.
The cost of the medical treatment has to be paid by the prisoner or his family members, but Kamal’s family are in Kobani and he has not seen them for many years.
Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) has learnt that several former Kurdish political prisoners in Iran have agreed to raise funds for him and collectively pay for his doctors’ appointments at a hospital in Tehran.
Kamal previously wrote a letter to the UN special rapporteur on Iran explaining how he had spent six days in coma as a result of severe torture at the prison.
In spring 2008, Kamal fell into an ambush set by IRGC in a village near the border town of Mako. The Revolutionary Guards deliberately targeted him and badly wounded him with several bullets.
Although he was bleeding and needed urgent medical care, he was immediately transported to a detention centre to be interrogated about his membership in the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
His wounds were infected by parasitic worms during the interrogation.
A few months later, the Revolutionary Court of Khoy (West Azerbaijan province) sentenced him to death with the charges of being a “PKK member”.
After his appeal, the Supreme Court reduced his sentence to two years behind bars and exile in Qazvin prison.
Unsuccessful surgery left his arm paralyzed
Unsuccessful surgery left his arm paralyzed
His fellow inmate added that in the last four years, Kamal had gone on hunger-strikes to protest against his lack of proper medical care on four occasions (four days in December 2009, two weeks in June 2012, ten days in March 2014 and one week in September 2015).
In the last few months, he has been transferred to hospital several times and each time with various pretexts the hospital staff refused to give him simple accommodation for proper medical care.
Over the last five years, he has been kept in prisons of Mako, Ghazvin, Evin (Tehran) and Rajaei Shahr (Karaj).
