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Iran: Political prisoner Shahrokh Zamani suspiciously loses his life in Gohardasht Prison

Shahrokh Zamani

Henchmen had repeatedly threatened to kill him
Call for an international fact-finding committee to investigate suspicious deaths of political prisoners

NCRI – Steadfast political prisoner Mr. Shahrokh Zamani from Iranian Azerbaijan suspiciously lost his life in Gohardasht (Rajai Shahr) Prison on Sunday afternoon, September 13. At 5 pm, his cellmates in Hall 12 of Ward 4 found his body in his bed with his mouth full of blood and a bruised head. He was with his cellmates until 10 am this morning and as always had a high spirit. He exercised regularly.

The henchmen and the intelligence agents deeply hated him and stopped at nothing to harass him. They had threatened to kill him on many occasions. In a note before his death he wrote: “I have been directly and indirectly threatened to be killed in the intelligence department, including by poisoning, placing me beside ordinary people suffering from AIDS, forcing psychologically unbalanced, murderous and dangerous individuals to attack me, placing intelligence agents under cover of prisoners with me who encouraged me to run away so that they could shoot me when I try to escape (I kept my distance from them when they were identified and exposed… I warn everyone about the consequences of any kind of these things. My death in prison, for whatever reason, should be blamed on the officials.”

Mr. Shahrokh Zamani, a 51-year-old painter and laborer, had been arrested multiple times for his activities in defending workers’ rights, including the establishment of social security and unemployment insurances for painters. He suffered the most severe tortures and pressures during his years of detention in prisons in Tabriz, Yazd, Ghezel-Hessar and Gohardasht Prison in Karaj.

He was first arrested in 1993 for his secret activities in the painters’ syndicate and was imprisoned for 18 months. On June 8, 2011, he was arrested in Tabriz and condemned to 11 years in prison on the charge of “propaganda against the system”. In September 2013, he was once again tried in the mullahs’ sham courts for “insulting the leader” and was condemned to six additional months in prison.

Mr. Zamani was repeatedly transferred to solitary confinement or quarantined wards and he went on hunger strike to protest against these atrocities. He was never allowed to meet his family in prison, and they did not allow him to participate in the ceremony for the death of his mother or in his daughter’s wedding. During his detention in Tabriz, henchmen transferred him to the ward of prisoners suffering from dangerous diseases. He suffered of many illnesses due to harsh prison conditions and severe tortures. He was not allowed to receive medical treatment outside the prison. He enjoyed special respect among prisoners for his firm position against the mullahs’ regime and was always at the forefront in protest moves in the prison.

Secret killing of political prisoners has been a well-known method employed by the Iranian regime, especially in recent years. Valiollah Fayz Mahdavi, Amir Hossein Heshmat-Saran, Mansour Radpour, and Afshin Assanlou are among these prisoners. The Iranian regime’s coroner’s office has tried to justify their deaths by providing unreal reasons.

Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the Iranian Resistance, offered her condolences to the family of Mr. Shahrokh Zamani, the heroic people of Iranian Azerbaijan, and all laborers. She emphasized that the blood of this steadfast prisoner, much like that of 120,000 martyrs of liberty, only increases the determination and the resolve of the Iranian people to bring down this inhuman regime and that his memory, like the other martyrs of liberty, will forever remain in the history of Iran.

Mrs. Rajavi called on the United Nations, in particular the Security Council, and all international human rights agencies to condemn the inhuman conditions of the Iranian regime’s prisons and the criminal treatment of prisoners by the henchmen and the tortures and pressures carried out against the prisoners. She called for an international mission to investigate the suspicious deaths of the political prisoners in Iran.

Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
September 13, 2015

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