The prosecutor of Iran’s city of Khoy has rejected a request by Kurdish female political prisoner Zeynab Jalalian to receive medical treatment outside the prison for her severe illnesses, a reliable source told Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN).
The source said: “Zeynab Jalalian has been suffering from severe eye pterygium and intestine issues for several years now. She is currently jailed in the prison of Khoy but the health centre of the prison lack the sufficient medical equipment to treat her illnesses, so she requested several times to be treated in a hospital outside the prison. However, the prosecutor has always rejected her requests. The prison authorities are well aware about her deteriorating health and agree that she needs to be treated outside the prison, but they say they cannot do it unless the prosecutor orders the transfer and this is because of her sensitive political case.’
Regarding her living conditions at the prison in Khoy in Azarbaijan Gharbi Province, the source said: “This prison is better than Kermanshah prison where she was previously held. This prison is closer to her hometown so her family can meet her every Wednesday. The only problem is that she is jailed in a small room shared with women sentenced for crimes such as murder and drug-related crimes because there are no other political prisoners at this prison. The guards also constantly check her room or whoever she contacts at the prison so she is being constantly watched.”
The Kermanshah Islamic Revolutionary Court sentenced Ms Jalalian to death in January 2009 on charges of “enmity against God”, due to her alleged membership of the Party For Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK), an outlawed armed Kurdish opposition group that demand rights of Kurds to political and cultural autonomy in Iran.
She had been held at the detention centres of Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence for over eight months prior to being issued the sentence at the court in Kermanshah.
She has said that she had been tortured during those eight months and that her family had no information about her whereabouts.
The Supreme Court confirmed her death sentence on 26 November 2009.
She was moved from Kermanshah prison to an unknown location and then to Evin Prison in Tehran in early March 2010.
Evin Prison in Tehran is hundreds of miles away from her hometown.
She was at imminent risk of execution after the sentence was confirmed. However, her death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in November 2011.
She was transferred to Khoy prison in November 2014.
For the past seven years in prison she has been denied the right to temporary compassionate leave, as well as medical treatment outside prison for her illnesses caused by torture and bad conditions of prions where she had been detained
