Iran: Increasing Pressure on Prisoners of Gohardasht, Zahedan and Mashhad
- Wednesday, 08 February 2017 13:51
The inhumane mullahs’ regime has intensified pressure and torture on political prisoners in Gohardasht Prison of Karaj, west of Tehran. From Saturday, February 4, with heavy snow and temperatures dropping below zero, prisoners are facing extreme conditions due to the lack of adequate heating systems. Many have become very ill considering a shortage of supplies needed to remain warm. Old and ill prisoners are enduring additional hardship in such conditions.
On February 5 a group of Gohardasht Prison inmates wrote a letter to the World Health Organization reading in part: “At a time when we prisoners and our families must undergo the most insulting inspections for a small opportunity to have contacts and family visits,… it has been a few days now that temperatures have dropped below zero, and the heating system of Gohardasht Prison has completely shut down. No actions have been taken to repair the system.”
In Zahedan Prison, southeast Iran, mafia groups have in recent days, including the midnight hours of Sunday, February 5, launched attacks on inmates in their sleep, vandalizing their personal belongings. On the morning of that very day in a raid on ward 3 they stole the prisoners’ television, which they had purchased at their own expense. These mafia groups in Zahedan Prison receive their orders from a torturer by the name of Hossein Khaje, director of the facility’s internal affairs.
In the meantime, authorities have merged the wards of juveniles and young men, imposing very harsh and intolerable conditions on the inmates. The prisoners literally have no room to sleep and the halls are packed.
Due to a shortage in toilets the prisoners are facing the threat of contagious diseases. Water in this prison was completely cutoff from Saturday noon time until Sunday afternoon.
350 of the more than 2,000 Zahedan Prison inmates are on death row. Inmates unable to purchase food are suffering from malnutrition. Recently a 32-year-old prisoner suffered a heart attack and died as prison authorities hindered his transfer to a hospital.
Inmates of Mashhad’s Vakil Abad Prison, northeast Iran, are also suffering from freezing cold temperatures as the weather has dropped below zero and this prison, too, lacks any heating system or appliances. As a result a number of the inmates have fallen ill. Water, electricity and gas services are down constantly. A large number of the inmates are on death row and each week many are secretly sent to the gallows.
The Iranian Resistance calls on all international human rights organizations, especially the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Iran, and the rapporteurs of torture and the right to life to dispatch a fact-finding mission to see into the dire situation of Iran’s prisons.
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
February 8, 2017
February 8, 2017
