Four Kurdish political and religious prisoners “Mostafa Sabzi”, “Qader Salimi“, “Bashir Pirmawane” and “Rahmi Turgut” who have been on hunger strike since 25 days ago are reported to be in critical health condition. These prisoners are on hunger strike in protest to the refusal of prison officials to grant them parole and transfer them to a prison near their parents’ place of residence.
A reliable source has told Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) that the afore-mentioned prisoners are suffering from weight loss and severe hypotension in the fourth week of their hunger strike. Severe weakness has made them unable to move and they to stay in bed all the time except for the time when their cellmates take them to the prison health clinic.”
The prison authorities have not yet paid much attention to the demands of these prisoners in order to prevent other political prisoners from joining the strike and repeating such protests in prison.
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.
Mustafa 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 cooperation with a Kurdish party following his visit to Orumiyeh. This political prisoner has gone 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 in protest to the refusal of authorities to grant him conditional release even though he has served more than half of his prison sentence.
