An 80-year-old woman, mother of a prisoner who had rejected the prison’s report about death of her son in his fifth day of his hunger strike, was flogged with 70 lashes at Khoy Prison on 28 November 2019 a source told the Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN).
Following flogging her with 70 lashes as per a verdict issued by Khoy Court, she was then taken to the women’s ward of Khoy Prison to serve the other part of her sentence which is eight months in prison.
Salbi Marandi is the mother of Behrouz Zeinal-Nejad who was a prisoner of Ordinary Crimes and had sewed his lips and gone on hunger strike last January in protest to the authorities’ refusal to extend his leave. He died in suspicious circumstances on the fifth day of his hunger strike, however, the prison authorities announced his death as “suicide”.
Zeinal-Nejad’s family has rejected the claim that Zeinal-Nejad committed suicide with the shoelace after seeing his corpse. They went to the prison’s office and made a complaint to the authorities. As they arrive at the prison area, they were mistreated by the prison warden which led to a clash between them and the prison warden. As a result, some of the prison’s office equipment was destroyed.
Following the incident, the prison warden and the judge filed a complaint against this family and the Public Court of Khoy sentenced Salbi Marandi and Atefeh Zeinal-Nejad (the prisoner’s sister) to 70 lashes and eight months in prison, each. Atefeh Zeinal-Nejad has so far evaded reporting into the court to prevent her sentence from being enforced.
