Statement from 21 Human Rights Organizations: Address the Situation of Kurdish Political Prisoners

On Saturday, December 29, 21 human rights organizations issued a joint statement urging the Iranian government to address the "safety and health conditions" of 27 Kurdish political prisoners who have been on hunger strike for over a month. According to the Human Rights Support Center's website, these 27 Kurdish political prisoners, held in Urmia Central Prison, have been on hunger strike since November 29, 2014, with several of them in "critical" condition. The report states that ten of these prisoners have been sentenced to death for "security" crimes. The Iran Human Rights Campaign previously announced that these prisoners initiated their hunger strike in protest against the "failure to separate dangerous criminals from political prisoners, overcrowding in this section, continuous summons and re-filing of cases, transfers to solitary confinement, and threats against their families." In their Saturday statement, the 21 human rights organizations called for the "immediate and unconditional separation of those convicted of dangerous crimes" from political prisoners in Urmia Central Prison. They also demanded the provision of necessary medical care for all prisoners and protection against torture and other degrading treatment. These organizations further called for the review of the cases of political prisoners in Urmia Central Prison, the abolition of the death penalty, and the "immediate and unconditional" release of all individuals imprisoned for "peaceful actions related to freedom of expression and assembly." Shirin Ebadi, Roya Boroumand, Hadi Ghaemi, Shadi Sadr, and Mohammad Mostafaei are among the directors of the organizations that signed this statement. Shirin Ebadi, a lawyer and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, stated, "Due to the failure to observe the law of crime separation, a tense situation has been created in which all prisoners, regardless of their convictions, face violent and non-standard treatment." She emphasized that prison officials either "do not implement the laws or implement them incorrectly." The Human Rights Support Center named Seyed Sam Hosseini, Jamal Mohammadi, Behrouz Alkhani, Ali Ahmad Soleiman, Saman Nasim, Sirvan Najavi, Ebrahim Eisaipour, Ali Afshari, Rozgar Afshari, and Mohammad Abdollahi as the ten prisoners sentenced to death who are among those on hunger strike. Amnesty International expressed concern on December 25 that Iranian authorities had "threatened to expedite" the execution of these ten Kurdish prisoners. The organization specifically mentioned Saman Nasim, one of these prisoners, who was reportedly 17 years old at the time of his arrest. Amnesty International, referring to the "torture" of Saman Nasim during his detention, called for a fair re-examination of his case without resorting to the death penalty and "avoiding torture-based confessions." Masoud Shams Nejad, Shir Kouh Hassanpour, Abdollah Bisalnoon, Youssef Kakememi, Osman Mostafipour, Mostafa Ali Ahmad, Abdollah Omomi, Vali Afshari, Keyhan Darvishi, Mostafa Davoodi, Shoresh Afshari, Khodr Rasool Marvat, Mohammad Abdollah Bakht, Amir Maladoust, Ahmad Tamoui, Jafar Afshari, and Reza Rasouli are 17 other prisoners who have been sentenced to prison terms ranging from six to 34 months. In this context, "the execution of 12 prisoners" in Urmia prison over the past two weeks has drawn criticism from Reporters Without Borders regarding the state of freedom of expression under Rouhani's government, and Amnesty International has expressed concern over the "imminent execution" of two Kurdish Iranian prisoners.