NCRI – Reports from Iran suggest that a political prisoner, who has been on hunger strike for the past 16 days, is now in critical condition. The clerical regime’s henchmen at the notorious Gohardasht prison in Karaj (west of Tehran) have also intensified the torture of Mr. Behrouz Javid Tehrani. The Iranian regime is reportedly planning to repeat the same scenario on Tehrani used on two other political prisoners, Valiollah Feyz Mahdavi and Akbar Mohammadi, who were killed under suspicious circumstances while on hunger strike.
On Sunday, May 3, 2009, the regime’s agents attacked political prisoners in Ward 2 of Gohardasht prison and brutally beat them. The agents then transferred some of the prisoners, including Tehrani, to Ward 1, which is dedicated to prisoners on the brink of execution. Tehrani was among the prisoners who, in protest to the vicious beatings and transfer of protesting prisoners to solitary confinement in Ward 1, began a hunger strike. The prison cells in Ward 1 are known as “dog house” in reference to their atrocious conditions. Aside from experiencing the intolerable conditions of this medieval prison, Tehrani has also lost a lot of weight under the strain of torture and hunger strike. Signs of torture are quite visible on his frail body.
Ali Mohammadi, the deputy prison warden, Kermani and Nabiollah Farajnejad, chief and deputy of the security and intelligence unit, respectively, and Khadem, the head of the ward, are some of the henchmen who collectively subject Tehrani to the most cruel forms of torture. Haj Kazem, Gohardasht prison’s warden, who was involved in torture and murder of prisoners such as incarcerated members of the main opposition People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) and the opponents of the regime including Hojjat Zamani, Valiollah Feyz Mahdavi, Abdolreza Rajabi, and Amir-Hossein Heshmatsaran, is personally supervising the torture of Tehrani. He has been arrested and tortured on a number of occasions since July 9, 1999.
The identities of hundreds of political prisoners who experience intolerable conditions at the mullahs’ medieval prisons and are additionally subjected to physical and psychological pressures, include:
– Mr. Mansour Radpour, who was arrested on May 17, 2007 and has been transferred to terrifying cells known as “dog house” in Ward 1 at Gohardasht prison, supervised by the intelligence unit of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
– Messrs Akbar Veysi, Peyman Khanjari, and Akbar Sanjani (who due to the severity of tortures has lost sight in one of his eyes) are being held at the Dizelabad prison in Kermanshah.
– Mr. Sadegh Sistani is being held at Evin’s notorious Ward 209. He previously served 14 years in prison for supporting the PMOI. Shortly after his release, on February 3, 2009, he was once again abducted and has been under constant torture since.
– Mr. Yasser Majidi, who has been transferred to Birjand and is being held in the a ward known as the “beyond hell.”
The Iranian Resistance warns against the mullahs’ sinister plans to eliminate political prisoners and calls on all international human rights organizations and in particular the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, to dispatch a special human rights rapporteur to Iran in order to stop brutal suppression.
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
May 23, 2009
