On July 30, following the announcement of a three-day hunger strike by Zeynab Jalalian along with nine prisoners of ordinary offences in protest to being deprived of weekly visits and basic prison facilities, one of the websites linked to the Ministry of Intelligence denied the strike’s news in an interview with a person called “Mostafa Moloodi”who introduced himself as Zeynab Jalalian’s lawyer.
However, in a telephone conversation with the Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) on Aug 2, the aforementioned political prisoner stated that she had not instructed any attorney since 2010 other than than Dr. Mohammad Sharif and Amir Salar Davoudi, whom she has given the power of attorney in the presence of Tehran’s Prosecutor at Evin Prison in Tehran. She called the interview with her alleged attorney, who denied the news of her strike, an absolute lie.
The Bitwan Association website, one of the local sites linked to the Ministry of Intelligence published the photo of a fake power of attorney on August 6 and claimed that the said person had been formally assigned as the legal representation of the political prisoner. According to KHRN, although the alleged attorney claims that he was a resident of Khoy, several lawyers from Khoy have denied the existence of such a lawyer.
Also, Dr. Mohammad Sharif, Zeynab Jalalian’s lawyer, published the news of a telephone conversation with Zeynab Jalalian in his personal Facebook page and denied the existence of such a lawyer.
“One of my clients known as Zeynab Jalalian, who was arrested in 2007 on charge of being a member of an armed Kurdish organisation and is currently serving her life sentence in prison called me today, about 3 p.m. She said hat a person had been communicating with media as her lawyer and made false statements on her behave. Zeynab Jalalian stressed that she had only assigned power of attorney to Mr. Amir Salar Davoudi, whom I have introduced to her as my colleague, and I. She also confirmed that any statements made on her behalf by any other people would an utter lie.”, his Facebook post read.
It should also be noted that previously the Ministry of Intelligence had shown several forged documents from the Prison Health Centre in a documentary on the press TV while claiming that Zeynab Jalalian had been transferred to the hospital for the medical examination. Such a claim was later denied by Zeynab Jalalian.
Zeynab Jalalian, born in 1982. is a Kurdish activist from a small village known as Deim Qeshlaq around Maku in Eastern Azerbaijan province in Iran. She was arrested in February 2007 by the Intelligence Service Forces of Kermanshah on charges of membership in PJAK. She was interrogated by the Kermanshah’s Intelligence Detention Centre while being seriously tortured both mentally and physically. Then she was transferred to Kermanshah Youth Rehabilitation Centre but she was repeatedly taken back to the Security Detention Centre for further interrogations..
On 3rd December 2008, Jalalian was sentenced to death on accounts of “armed actions against Islamic Republic of Iran and membership in PJAK in addition to possessing and carrying illegal weapons while engaging in acts of propaganda warfare against the Islamic Republic of Iran” by Judge Moradi at the Revolutionary Court of Kermanshah (branch 1)”. This sentence was later affirmed on April 2nd, 2009 by Judge Ali Mohammad Roshani at the Kermanshah Court of Appeals (branch 4) despite the contest statements prepared by her lawyer.
The Supreme Court confirmed her death sentence on 26 November 2009. She was transferred from Kermanshah Prison to an unknown location before being taken to Evin Prison in Tehran in early March 2010. She was held in ward 209 of Evin Prison for five months but then transferred to Kermanshah Dizelabad Prison again since she refused to accept the authorities’ condition for emancipation from death sentence. She was offered to be emancipated from death sentence if she would do a TV interview. She was at imminent risk of execution after the sentence was confirmed. However, her death sentence was reduced to life imprisonment in November 2011.
In November 2014, she was transferred to Khoy prison which is three hours away from her family’s residence. Such distance makes visitations for her relatives, specifically her elderly parents, very challenging. During the past 10 years of her imprisonment, she has been denied of the right to temporary compassionate leave as well as medical treatment outside the prison for her illnesses caused by torture and bad prison conditions.
Zeynab Jalalian has been on a medicinal strike and not taking her prescribed medications since February 2017.
