Zeynab Jalalian, a cultural and women rights activist, is being denied healthcare by Iranian intelligence ministry officials – despite her recent contraction of the coronavirus and a medical scan showing that she had “cloudy spots” on her lungs, Amnesty said.
“The ministry of intelligence is conditioning access to adequate health care, transfer to a prison closer to her family home in West Azerbaijan province and an end of reprisals against Zeynab Jalalian and her family on her ”confessing” to wrongdoing and expressing remorse for her past political activities on camera and agreeing to work with the ministry of intelligence,” Amnesty said.
Jalalian was previously refused medical care after she contracted the coronavirus at a Tehran prison, despite being in a critical condition.
“This intentional denial of health care is causing her severe pain and suffering, particularly as she has serious medical conditions, including post-Covid 19 breathing difficulties,” the human rights organisation said, calling for her immediate release.
Jalalian was detained in 2008 for her alleged membership to the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK), an Iranian Kurdish armed opposition group – charges she has denied. Four officers “violently kicked her and removed her from the bus” that she was travelling in between Kermanshah and Sanandaj to arrest her.
She was reportedly tortured by the intelligence ministry soon after her arrest, after refusing to confess to PJAK membership and beg for forgiveness on camera.
Initially sentenced to death by a revolutionary court in Kermanshah for “enmity against God” in 2008, her sentence was reduced to life imprisonment in 2011 by the court of appeal.
One source who spoke to the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention in 2016 stated that “although Ms. Jalalian’s activism and activities were supported by the PJAK, there is no evidence that she was ever involved, either directly or indirectly, in PJAK’s armed militant wing.”
Jalalian was held at Khoy prison in her home province of West Azerbaijan for a number of years, but she was taken to Shahre Rey prison outside of Tehran in April 2020.
After going on hunger strike asking to be transferred from Shahre Rey, she was eventually transferred to a prison in Kerman province, where she was held in solitary confinement for three months and denied contact with her family. She was transferred to Kermanshah prison in September 2020.
“Zeynab Jalalian has described the transfers themselves as a type of “mental torture”; each prison transfer has meant adjusting to new prison guards, prisoners and systems,” Amnesty said in its Monday release.
She has also said that she has not been able to take all her personal possessions with her during the transfers.
Jalalian’s lawyer, Amirsalar Davoudi, was also sentenced to a lengthy prison term In May 2019 in relation to his human rights work; she has had no lawyer since.
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