Inmates at Iranian prison attack Kurdish author after hunger strike: Report
ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – A Kurdish author in his third year of detention at an Iranian prison, who went on hunger strike for seven days in early August, was severely beaten by fellow inmates at the instigation of a correctional official, a human rights organization claimed.
“Ten prisoners of dangerous [offenses] held in the [labors’] ward attacked this political prisoner with a sharp object while being supported by the ward officer called Mehr Ali Farhand,” a report released by Iran Human Rights Monitor (Iran HRM) on Wednesday read.
According to the group, Ali Baderkhani, originally from the Kurdistan Region, went on the week-long hunger strike to protest not being held on the Political Prisoners’ Ward and ended it Tuesday after prison authorities promised to transfer him.
Instead, he was transferred from solitary confinement to the Labors’ Ward, where the assault happened soon after.
Baderkhani, Iran HRM writes, is known as Shiwan and immigrated to Iran with his family “about 30 years ago and he has an Iraqi-Iranian citizenship. Among his publications are Turkey, Democracy and Kurds, Discussion of Idea, Refugee of Love, Kurdish Tales and Myths.”
As a student, he was barred from finishing his Master’s Degree at Tehran University in 2014, during his last semester, and then arrested at his sister’s house in Urmia, in the northwestern province of West Azerbaijan.
“He was interrogated at the Detention Centre of Urmia for 20 days on charges of acting against national security. During this time, he was repeatedly tortured to make false confessions,” the report said.
On Iran HRM’s website, it states that the organization’s purpose “is to cover executions, arbitrary arrests, torture and amputation, prison’s conditions, women, social, ethnic and religious minorities oppression news in Iran and fill the gaps in information and knowledge caused by lack of access and freedom to Iran.”
Multiple human rights groups demanded in August that Iranian authorities immediately stop harassing and threatening the families of activists and journalists as a means to silence dissent and criticism.
On Aug. 5, the lawyer of an Iranian Kurdish activist on death row was arrested on Sunday in the country’s Sanandaj (Sina) city in Kurdistan Province. The case of the activist, Ramin Hossein Panahi, has attracted international attention.
Editing by Karzan Sulaivany
