Human Rights

At least 120 prisoners were confirmed to have tested positive for coronavirus in Rajai Shahr Prison. Political prisoners are also among those contracted Covid-19.

Prisoner of conscience Farhad Meysami has tested positive for the virus at Rajaei Shahr prison in the city of Karaj and was transferred from his ward to a so-called prison “safe room” for isolation.

A 50-year-old physician, Farhad Meysami was arrested by agents of the Intelligence Ministry on July 31, 2018, for allegedly having badges in his home with the slogan “I am against compulsory hijab.”

He has been sentenced to six years imprisonment and banned from leaving the country or engaging in online activities for one year for peacefully protesting the regime’s compulsory hijab law.

Some 45 Sunni prisoners in Rajaei Shahr Prison have previously contracted the virus and the authorities denied them adequate medical treatment. The condition of a number of the infected Sunni prisoners, including; Farhad Salimi, Khosro Besharat, Abdul Jabbar Hosseini, Farzad Shahnazari, Abdollah Shariati and Borhan Asgharian are worse than the others.

Zeinab Jalalian, along with nine prisoners of ordinary offences, went on hunger strike in protest to being deprived of weekly visits and basic facilities.

Prison authorities had discovered a mobile phone following an inspection of the prisoners’ section during the past few days.

On 25 July, 2018, an Iranian court convicted and sentenced Mohammad Sani, a teacher in the city of Bushehr, to 2years behind bars and 74 lashes allegedly in relation to his nonviolent participation in teacher’s protests during 2015.

Two months after the banishment of Arash Sadeghi to Gohardasht Prison, he has been denied medical services, apparently on the order of IRGC interrogators.

He is suffering from worsening digestive complications due to his 71-day hunger strike, but the authorities do not allow him to be hospitalized outside Tehran’s Evin prison.