Eight prisoners of conscience sentenced to less than five years in prison – Hashem Darwishi, Ebrahim Moradi, Farouq Lavashloui, Awat Javanbakht, Akbar Omari, Hedayat Alizadeh, Saleh Khoshkalam and Yousef Qarnipour- have been granted a furlough from Orumiyeh Central Prison.

An informed source has told the Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) that “Ebrahim Moradi, Awat Javanbakht and Farouq Lavashloui, Akbar Amri and four other prisoners have been granted leave from the prison over the past few days.”

According to the informed source, Hedayat Alizadeh was serving his four-year imprisonment sentence and the other prisoners were serving their five-year imprisonment sentence at Orumiyeh Central Prison.َ

Although these eight prisoners have been granted a furlough, many Kurdish political prisoners and prisoners of conscience with less than 5 years held in various Iranian prisons have been deprived of this right.According to the new Judiciary directive, prisoners accused of acting against national security with a prison sentence of less than 5 years are entitled to furlough. However, KHRN investigations have revealed that very few of over 50 Kurdish political prisoners with less than 5 years of imprisonment sentence are still held in prisons.

The following prisoners have been sentenced to imprisonment on charges of “membership in Salafi groups: ”Hashem Darwishi on September 20, 2016, Ebrahim Moradi on December 11, 2017, Farouq Lavashloui on April 25, 2018, Avan Javanbakht on June 17, 2018, Akbar Amri and Hedayat Alizadeh on Ardebah on April 23, 2017, and Yousef Qarnipour on August 16, 2017.