Rights defender Narges Mohammadi says authorities have put the lives of female prisoners in danger by refusing to protect them from Covid despite new cases.
Prominent civil and human rights activist Narges Mohammadi, who has been transferred to the Women’s Ward of Tehran’s IRGC Evin Prison after a recent open-heart surgery, said Thursday that some of the inmates have tested positive for Covid while several others have developed symptoms but have not been tested.
“Self-isolation is impossible given the high number of inmates and the small size of the women’s ward,” Mohammadi wrote in a letter from Evin which was published on her Instagram page.
“It is the duty of human rights activists and organizations not to remain silent about the violation of prisoners’ basic rights, to defend the legal rights of political prisoners and prisoners of conscience and their right to health, and to force the government to abide by human rights,” Mohammadi wrote. Female
She also added that currently there are over 50 political prisoners and prisoners of conscience at the Women’s Ward of Evin and the number keeps increasing.
“These many inmates with various political and ideological affiliations are unprecedented in the history of the prison … This indicates increasing suppression by the government,” Mohammadi said in her letter.
Mohammadi has been to jail several times over the past two decades. She was freed from Evin Prison in September 2020 after serving more than five years when she had no contact with her husband and children for long periods of time.
She was arrested again and sentenced to eight years in jail and 70 lashes by the Revolutionary Court on trumped-up political charges again in a five-minute trial in late January.
Ill-treatment of political prisoners and activists at Evin and other prisons such as Qarchak is not limited to denying them necessary healthcare.