ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A Kurdish prisoner died under suspicious circumstances in Iran’s Kurdistan Province on Tuesday, human rights organizations announced on Wednesday, criticising Iran for its “unprecedented” treatment of prisoners.
Khosraw Jamalifar, 24, was arrested three years ago on charges of killing two people and imprisoned in Sanandaj prison awaiting sentencing, his brother told Hengaw Organization for Human Rights the day after his death was announced.
"Prison officials beat Khosraw with a baton, and he eventually died from the blows. In this case, the negligence of Abdollahi, the prison's nurse, and the failure to send him to the hospital in time, also contributed to the death of this prisoner,” Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) said on Wednesday, citing an informed source and adding that it was the prisons’ “responsibility to maintain the health of the prisoner.”
A source from Tawhid hospital in Sanandaj where the prisoner was taken told Hengaw that prison officials had claimed to doctors that he had attempted suicide by overdose. Khosraw had died by the time he was admitted to hospital, the source added.
His brother told Hengaw that the family were only informed of his death after they had arrived at the hospital, and were told that he was in the morgue. The family were followed by “more than six cars of security forces”, not allowed to look at his body, and he was buried with security forces present.
Abuse is rife in Iran’s prisons. A video leaked in August revealed abuses in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison, such as a man smashing a bathroom mirror to try to cut his arm, guards beating prisoners, and guards fighting among themselves.
In response, the head of Iran’s prison authority, Mohammad Mahdi Hajmohammadi, apologized for “unacceptable” behavior and pledged to “not repeat such tragic events.”
International monitors are concerned that human rights could further erode in Iran under the new President, Ebrahim Raisi, a hardline judge with a record of abuses who is believed to have played a role in a 1988 prison massacre.
In September, Amnesty International raised concerns over the failure of Iranian authorities to provide accountability for the deaths of more than 70 prisoners, over half of whom appear to have died from torture and ill-treatment. Earlier that month, a Kurdish man was taken to a detention centre where he died “under torture”, with the reason for his arrest remaining unclear.
According to the latest monthly report by Paris-based Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN), “many Kurdish civilians and activists from Iran have become victims of human rights violations” in October.
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