Kurdish political prisoner Nayeb Hajizadeh was transferred to solitary confinement for punishment upon the orders of the authorities at Orumiyeh Central Prison on 1 June.
The political prisoner protested against being held in Ward 1-2, the ward for prisoners charged with “premeditated murder”, and challenged the prison authorities’ failure to respect the principle of segregation of crimes.
For the past year, Hajizadeh has been in poor health and denied access to medical care.
He was transferred to one of the medical centres outside Orumiyeh Central Prison in early 2022 due to illness but was returned to prison without completing his treatment after undergoing a wrong operation.
Earlier, a source familiar with Hajizadeh’s situation spoke to the Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) and said: “In early 2022, Mr Hajizadeh was transferred from prison to a hospital for an internal abdominal rupture, but for unknown reasons, he underwent the wrong operation. After the political prisoner was returned to prison, and despite his deteriorating health during this period, he was denied medical care due to the opposition of the prison authorities.”
On 8 October 2019, security forces arrested Nayeb Hajizadeh along with four other civilians, Kamran Ghasemi, Keyvan Rashozadeh, Omid Saeidi and Abdolaziz Mohammadpour. They were taken to the Ministry of Intelligence detention facility in Orumiyeh.
The civilians were transferred to Orumiyeh Central Prison after a month of interrogation in the Ministry of Intelligence detention centre.
In December 2020, Branch Two of the Islamic Revolutionary Court of Orumiyeh sentenced each 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 2021, Hajizadeh and two other Kurdish political prisoners, Keyhan Mokarram and Nayeb Askari, were sentenced to three months in prison and 50 lashes after Dariush Bakhshi, the head of Orumiyeh Central Prison, and Masoud Kia, a prison officer, filed a complaint, accusing the prisoners of “disturbing the prison order”.
The lawsuit was filed after a general crime prisoner beat a Kurdish political prisoner.