ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – A political prisoner in Iran, jailed for his support for a Kurdish party, has been hospitalized as his health has deteriorated after three months of a hunger strike.
Mohammad Nazari, 46, was transferred from prison to a hospital in Tehran last week on the 90th day of a hunger strike, the France-based Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) reported on Saturday.
Despite being weak and having lost 25 kilos, he was handcuffed to his hospital bed, a source informed KHRN.
Doctors advised him to end his hunger strike, but he refused and is continuing with the protest, the source added.
Nazari was arrested in May 1994 for his “peaceful support of the political goals” of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI), Amnesty International stated in a recent urgent appeal for his release.
According to Amnesty, Nazari was tortured in detention and forced to confess to involvement in an alleged assassination plot against affiliates of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.
An ethnic Azeri, Nazari began a hunger strike on July 30 in protest of his imprisonment and to demand a retrial.
The PDKI described his continued imprisonment as “unjust.” Concerned for Nazari’s health, the party has urged him to end his hunger strike.
The PDKI is one of several Kurdish parties who resumed their armed struggle against the Iranian regime in recent years, seeking to attain national rights for Kurds and other minorities within a federal and democratic Iran.
Mohammad Nazari, 46, was transferred from prison to a hospital in Tehran last week on the 90th day of a hunger strike, the France-based Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) reported on Saturday.
Despite being weak and having lost 25 kilos, he was handcuffed to his hospital bed, a source informed KHRN.
Doctors advised him to end his hunger strike, but he refused and is continuing with the protest, the source added.
Nazari was arrested in May 1994 for his “peaceful support of the political goals” of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI), Amnesty International stated in a recent urgent appeal for his release.
According to Amnesty, Nazari was tortured in detention and forced to confess to involvement in an alleged assassination plot against affiliates of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.
An ethnic Azeri, Nazari began a hunger strike on July 30 in protest of his imprisonment and to demand a retrial.
The PDKI described his continued imprisonment as “unjust.” Concerned for Nazari’s health, the party has urged him to end his hunger strike.
The PDKI is one of several Kurdish parties who resumed their armed struggle against the Iranian regime in recent years, seeking to attain national rights for Kurds and other minorities within a federal and democratic Iran.
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