Five Kurdish political and religious prisoners “Bashir Pirmawane”, “Rahmi Turgut”, Mostafa Sabzi, Qader Salimi and Mohammad Pishbin are still on hunger strike since last week in protest against the refusal of prison officials to grant them parole or transfer them to a prison near their parents’ place of residence.

Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) has obtained information that Rahimi Turgut and Bashir Pirmavanah have been on hunger strike since July 22, 2019, Mustafa Sabzi and Qader Salimi have been on hunger strike since July 23 while Mohammed Pishbin also went on hunger strike on July 31.

They are in critical health condition as a result of the hunger strike and their cellmates take them to the prison health care daily for blood pressure control.

Qader Salimi, a religious prisoner from Bukan, was arrested on July 2017 and sentenced to two years in prison by branch 2 of the Islamic Revolutionary Court of Orumiyeh on charges of cooperation with religious extremist groups.

Mostafa Sabzi, 24 years old and a Kurdish civilian from Maku, was arrested in one of the villages of Orumiyeh by the Islamic Republic of Iran Guards Corps (IRGC) and interrogated at the Ministry of Intelligence Detention Centre in Orumiyeh for two months. After completing his interrogation, he was transferred to the Orumiyeh Central Prison and sentenced to five years of imprisonment by the Branch 2 of the Orumiyeh Revolutionary Court a few months later on charges of membership in the Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK). The ruling was also upheld by the Orumiyeh Court of Appeal.

Rahmi Turgut, a Kurdish citizen of Turkey, was arrested by security forces in June 2017 and sentenced to five years of imprisonment on charges of cooperating with a Kurdish party following his visit to Orumiyeh. This political prisoner also went on hunger strike due to not being granted conditional release after serving half of his imprisonment sentence.

Bashir Pirmawane was also arrested in March 2016 by security forces in Orumiyeh and sentenced to five years in prison on charges of collaboration with a Kurdish opposition party. The sentence was later reduced to four years per the law of ‘Submission to the Verdict”. This political prisoner has also been on strike for more than half of his sentence in protest to the refusal of authorities to grant him conditional release.

Another Kurdish religious prisoner, Mohammad Pishbin, was arrested in April on charges of links to Salafi groups and sentenced to five years in prison by the Branch 4 of Orumiyeh Revolutionary Court.