A request from a political prisoner at Rajai Shahr Prison in Karaj to attend his mother’s funeral has been denied, a source familiar with the case of the prisoner told Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN).
Saeed Shirzad had requested temporary release saying he has the right to attend his mother’s funeral, the source said.
His sister posted on her Twitter account on 20 September saying that the authorities of Rajai Shahr prison in Karaj had not yet granted him leave to attend his mother’s funeral.
Shirzad had not been informed about his mother’s death until 19 September, when he found out after he had met other prisoners.
Efforts by Shirzad’s family and their frequent referrals to the Karaj prosecutor’s office to obtain permission to release him had failed.
His family arranged his transfer to a hospital on 15 September for a scheduled eye operation.
But prison officials did not permit him medical leave to the hospital because he had “refused to put on the [prison] uniform he was asked to wear.”
KHRN has learnt from its source inside the country that Shirzad has suffered from a number of physical problems over the past few years because he was on hunger strike twice, once for 39 days and another time his strike had lasted 53 days.
He is suffering from kidney pain, lower back pain, and severe inflammation of the lower back.
In December 2018, after examining ultrasound results, a specialist told him that his right kidney has shrunk to 8 cm and his right kidney has cysts.
Shirzad has been detained since June 2, 2014 when he was arrested at his workplace in Tabriz Oil Refinery by agents of the Intelligence Ministry for “helping the children of political prisoners to pursue education”, the source said.
He was interrogated in solitary confinement at Ward 209 of Evin Prison in Tehran for more than two months on charges of “defending working children and family of political prisoners”
Shirzad was sentenced to five years of imprisonment in Tehran by Branch 15 of the Islamic Revolutionary Court of Tehran in September 2015 on charges of “gathering, conspiring and acting against national security”.
