Sakineh Parvaneh, a Kurdish political prisoner who went on a hunger strike in protest to being transferred from Evin Prison to Quchan Prison on October 31, sewed her lips together on the eighth day of her hunger strike. She is in a hunger strike to protest her planned re-transfer to Isfahan Prison, as well as the continuing pressure from security agencies and prison officials, including her long detention and torture in a psychiatric hospital before her recent transfer to Evin Prison and then to Quchan, a reliable source told the Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN).
A source familiar with her case had previously told the KHRN that “the Quchan prosecutor’s office has expressed ignorance about her transfer to Quchan and has announced her exile to Isfahan prison in the coming days. This political prisoner has also been on a hunger strike since October 31 in protest to the possibility of her transfer to Isfahan prison.”
The political prisoner had previously published a letter on July 26 describing the detention and harassment she had experienced during her imprisonment. According to her, security agents arrested her in the early fall of 2020 when she was visiting her family in the Iraqi Kurdish city of Sulaymaniyah. After being transferred to the Iranian-Iraqi border, she spent 10 days in Marivan and Sanandaj detention centres. She spent her detention under the most severe conditions of interrogation and physical torture in Wards 2A, 209 and the women of Evin Prison.
Her lawyer called Peyman Darfshan, who is also currently in the prison, announced the issuance of a five-year prison sentence and a two-year ban on membership in political groups and communities for his client by Branch 26 of the Islamic Revolutionary Court of Tehran on May 25.
In March, Sakineh Parvaneh painted the flag of Kurdistan and wrote slogans in favour of the Komala party in the women’s ward of Evin Prison. Ms Parvaneh’s action provoked a strong reaction from the prison security officers, who transferred the political prisoner to Aminabad Shahrari Psychiatric Hospital with insults and beatings. On August 27, this political prisoner was notified of being sentenced to a further two-year in prison on charges of “disturbing the prison order” while in prison.
