NCRI – Iranian regime has intensified pressures on women political prisoners in Iran. All visits and telephone calls to the prisoners in the women’s ward of Tehran’s notorious Evin prison have been cancelled. The prison authorities enforced the limitations after women prisoners refrained from forcibly going outside the building in the cold weather at 6:00 a.m. as their daily break.
Shabnam Madadzadeh, Mahsa Naderi, Atefeh Nabavi, Fatemeh Ziaie Azad, and Nazila Dashti are among those held in the women’s ward of Evin prison.
Mahsa Naderi, 19, arrested last February for “having contact with the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK)” is in critical condition. She has been suffering from various illnesses due to months of torture and solitary confinement in Ward 209 of Evin prison by Saeed Sheikhan. Her family’s requests for temporary leave to seek medical treatment for her had not been answered.
Shabnam Madadzadeh, Mahsa Naderi, Atefeh Nabavi and Fatemeh Ziaie Azad, have been held for months without determination of their status. Atefeh Nabavi was arrested and imprisoned on June 15, 2009 during the post -election period. She spent 95 days in Ward 209 and later transferred to the ward known as “Metadon,” and women’s ward.
Kobra Banazadeh, a relative of PMOI members residing in Ashraf, Aalieh Eghdam Doost, a women activist held in Gohardasht prison, and Fariba Pazhoh, a reporter held in Ward 209 of Evin prison are living in agonizing prison conditions. They are among the women political prisoners who were arrested along with hundreds of other women and girls in recent demonstrations particularly the November 4th protest.
The number of prisoners held in prison cells are much higher than their assigned capacities; hence they are deprived of their primary needs and medical treatment.
Ms. Sarvnaz Chitsaz, Chair of the Women’s Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran called on human rights organizations particularly women’s rights activists and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to take immediate and binding measures for the unconditional release of all political prisoners in Iran particularly, the women prisoners.
Women’s Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
November 11, 2009
