A young man sentenced to amputation of his fingers by Iran has attempted to commit suicide twice in Orumiyeh Central Prison, in the past two months.
Hadi Rostami, a prisoner sentenced to “amputation of four fingers of his right hand” on the charge of “theft” has twice committed suicide by eating glass to protest his detention in the security ward of Orumiyeh Central Prison and the risk of the execution of his sentence, a source told the Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN).
Despite the urgent need to be sent to a hospital outside the prison after eating glass, Rostami was kept in prison due to the opposition of the inspector and the head of the prison.
The prisoner has suffered internal bleeding several times in the past month due to the shards of glass in his digestive system.
Rostami was internally exiled to Tabriz Prison from Orumiyeh Central Prison on 19 December 2020, without prior notice. However, Tabriz prison officials refused to accept him for a long period and he was returned to Orumiyeh Central Prison after one day.
On 8 December 2020, Rostami wrote a letter to Ali Akbar Garousi, Chief Justice of West Azerbaijan province, saying he had been tortured during his detention by intelligence agents and that he and his two co-defendants had been unjustly sentenced based on their confessions under torture. He demanded re-examination of the case and revocation of the amputation order in his letter.
According to the statistics compiled by the KHRN, there are currently six prisoners convicted of “theft” and sentenced to “amputation of four fingers of a hand”. These prisoners are the 33-year-old Hadi Rostami, 37-year-old Mehdi Sharafian, 42-year-old Mehdi Shahivand, 35-year-old Shahab Teymouri, 39-year-old Mehrdad Teymouri, and 40-year-old Kasra Karami.
