Kurdish political prisoner Nayeb Hajizadeh, who underwent a wrong surgery about a year ago in a medical facility outside Orumiyeh Central Prison, is in critical condition, Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) has learned.
Due to opposition from prison authorities, the prisoner is still denied the right to be sent on temporary leave for treatment and access to proper medical care.
“Last year, he was transferred from prison to a hospital for an internal abdominal tear, but for unknown reasons, he underwent the wrong surgery. After the political prisoner was returned to prison and despite his deteriorating health during this period, he was denied medical care due to opposition from prison authorities”, said a source familiar with Hajizadeh’s situation.
The source added: “The political prisoner was sentenced to three months of imprisonment and 50 lashes last year after Dariush Bakhshi, the prison head, and Masoud Kia, a prison guard, filed a complaint, accusing the prisoners of ‘disrupting the prison order’. After the verdict was issued, despite the approval of the Prison Segregation Council and the [Islamic] Revolutionary Court of Orumiyeh to send him on temporary leave for treatment, the judge overseeing the prison announced that his leave was subject to the consent of the plaintiffs in the case of disrupting the prison order’, Dariush Bakhshi and Masoud Kia.”
In November 2022, the source said, Hajizadeh went on a hunger strike that lasted several days to protest against being denied temporary leave.
Security forces arrested Nayeb Hajizadeh on 8 October 2019, along with four other civilians Kamran Ghasemi, Keyvan Rashozadeh, Omid Saeidi and Abdolaziz Mohammadpour. They were taken to the Ministry of Intelligence detention centre in Orumiyeh.
After a month of interrogation in the detention centre of the intelligence ministry, the civilians were transferred to Orumiyeh Central Prison.
They were tried in December 2020 at Branch 2 of the Islamic Revolutionary Court of Orumiyeh. Each was sentenced to 10 years and one day in prison on charges of “acting against national security” through “membership in the Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan”.
In August, Hajizadeh and two other Kurdish political prisoners, Keyhan Mokarram and Nayeb Askari, were sentenced to 50 lashes and three months in prison after the head of Orumiyeh Central Prison filed a complaint, accusing the prisoners of “disrupting the prison order”.
The lawsuit was filed after a general crimes prisoner beat a Kurdish political prisoner.
