Revocation of Work Permits for 12 Ordinary Prisoners Under the Pretext of Supporting the 'Death to the Dictator' Slogan

An informed source told Voice of America that following the solidarity of several ordinary prisoners in Unit 4 of Qazalhesar Prison with the protest of Zartosht Ahmadi Raghb against executions and the spread of drugs, judicial officials not only revoked their work permits but also transferred them to another unit, while Mr. Ahmadi Raghb was moved to solitary confinement. According to a report received by the Persian section of Voice of America, on Sunday, the prison management suddenly revoked the work permits of 12 prisoners in the labor unit who worked full-time from Saturday to Thursday in carpet weaving, supporting themselves and their families, and transferred them to Unit 1 of Qazalhesar Prison. This action by the prison chief occurred after a group of ordinary prisoners joined the daily protests of Zartosht Ahmadi Raghb, a political prisoner and human rights advocate. According to the informed source, Mr. Ahmadi Raghb chants slogans such as 'No to executions', 'No to drugs', 'Long live freedom', and 'Death to the dictator' in the public space of the prison to protest human rights violations by the Islamic Republic, and this action was supported by some ordinary prisoners. The source reported that the prisoners whose work permits were revoked were 'shocked and some of them were crying' and were taken to Unit 1 of Qazalhesar Prison under distressing conditions. Human rights violations against prisoners in Iran by the judiciary and its agents have been reported multiple times. Furthermore, when Zartosht Ahmadi Raghb returned to the hall after the prisoners with revoked work permits were brought back, he noticed that some of them had been transferred and he repeated his protest. Subsequently, on Tuesday, prison officials transferred this political prisoner to 'solitary confinement in Unit 3 known as the suite'. Reports indicate that Zartosht Ahmadi Raghb's transfer to solitary confinement comes while Arasham Rezai, another political prisoner, has been in solitary confinement since February 10 and prison officials have refused to return him to the political prisoners' ward. Coinciding with the anniversary of the 1979 Revolution in February, Arasham Rezai, Zartosht Ahmadi Raghb, and Reza Mohammadi, three political prisoners held in Qazalhesar Prison, announced that from February 1 to February 25, they would observe a 'decade of suffering' in protest against '46 years of tyranny, repression, executions, violence, and censorship', chanting against human rights violations by the Islamic Republic. Human rights sources have warned about the situation of human rights violations by the prison organization, particularly in the provinces of Alborz and Razavi Khorasan, emphasizing the 'systematic abuse of prisoners' by the Islamic Republic's judiciary.