By Mansoureh Galestan
In an open letter, 10 Iranian political prisoners imprisoned in Rajai Shahr (Gohardasht) Prison in Karaj expressed their solidarity with the family of political prisoner Alireza Shir-Mohammad-Ali, 21, who was recently stabbed to death in prison by the Iranian regime’s agents.
They referred to other political prisoners incarcerated in violation of the code of separating prisoners of social and political crimes. The 10 cosignatories requested the international community to demand punishment for the organizers of this murder and stand for the basic rights of other Iranian political prisoners.
Their letter reads in part:
“Last week, the news of Alireza’s murder and imagining his mourning mother who lost his loved one, left us in deep sorrow. The assassination of this political prisoner was neither the first nor the last example. Recently a former inmate, Vahid Sayadi Nasiri, died due hunger strike and the negligence of Qom prison’s wardens to his righteous demands. Alireza was also suspiciously killed despite passing a dozen days on hunger strike.”
“As prisoners who have served our term for a while in regular cells and solitary confinement, it is obvious to us that it is prohibited for the prisoners to leave the doors to solitary confinement cells open, let alone giving prisoners knives.”
The claim of the National Prisons Organizations denying keeping political prisoners with dangerous prisoners is an absolute lie and only serves as an excuse to justify this horrible murder. The presence of political prisoners is proof to reject this claim. Prisoners such as Ismail Bakhshi, Amir Amirgholi, Jafar Azimzade in Evin prison, Mrs. Monireh Arabsahi, Yasmine Ariani, Saba Kurd-Afshari, Shokoufe Yadollahi, Sepide Moradi, Elham Ahmadi, Marizieh Amiri, Atefe Rangriz, Neda Naji, Sepide Gholyan and others. in Gharchak prison, and dozens of Sufi prisoners, Sohail Arabi, Akbar Bagheri in Fashafoye and others.”
“The presence of these political prisoners also rejects all the fabricated claims about the death of political prisoners such as Zahra Kazemi, Akbar Mohammadi, Valiollah Feiz-Mahdavi, Abdolreza Rajabi, Omidreza Mir-Sayafi, Hoda Saber, Satar Beheshti, Shahrokh Zamani, Saroo Ghahremani, Sina Ghanbani and others.”
Therefore, we, the political prisoners in Gohardasht Prison, with deep solidarity with the family of our slain inmate, urge all the freedom-loving people to break their silence and stand for Alireza and the rights of other unknown political prisoners throughout the country.”
Signatories: Arash Sadeghi, Ebrahim Firouzi, Payam Shakiba, Hassan Sadeghi, Saeid Shirzad, Saeid Safai, Saeid Masouri, Majid Assadi, Mohammad Banazadeh Amirkhizi, Mohammad Ali Mansouri
