NCRI – According to obtained reports, the mullahs’ henchmen in Gohardasht, Karaj, prison, 40 kilometers west of Tehran, have increased torture and pressure on political prisoners, especially sympathizers of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI).
The henchmen forcefully take prisoners of Gohardasht’s ward 4, including people with illnesses and seniors aged 60 to 80, to the outdoor part of the prison in the morning, and keep them there in winter cold under snow and rain. This inhuman action has severely led to a jump in the number of illnesses among prisoners. On Thursday, prisoners collectively resisted against this form of imposing pressure by the henchmen and refused to go outside. Following the protest move, the lead henchman and prison chief, Ali Haj Kazem, ordered Mahmoud Moghnian, the ward’s chief, and other agents including one of the tortures identified as Koli Band, to attack the prisoners. Later, family visits with the prisoners were stopped until further notice on the order of Ali Haj Kazem. Some of the political prisoners of Gohardasht prison’s ward 4 include Saeed Masouri, Mansour Osanlou, Arjang Davoudi, Ali Jan Garai, and three other prisoners identified as Shir-Mohammad Rezai, and Hamid and Asghar Banazadeh, who are survivors of the 1988 massacre of political prisoners.
Obtained reports also indicate that during the past two weeks, the suppression of prisoners in other wards of the torture chamber of Gohardasht has also increased. For instance, special guards of Gohardasht attacked ward 6 and beat the prisoners. This brutal attack led to protests by the prisoners. Following the incident, the torturers transferred six of the prisoners, including Seyyed Hassan Hosseinipour, Asad Jamali, Ahmad Ghaemi, and Hossein Vafai, all of whom are under 30, to the “Sagdani” (literally, dog house), which is one of the most notorious torture chambers of the regime. The said individuals were put under some of the harshest forms of torture. The ward 6 chief, IRGC member Abbas Saeedi, had a direct role in suppressing the prisoners.
Obtained reports from the Gohardasht torture chamber in Karaj moreover show that Mr. Ali Moezi, charged with having relatives in Ashraf City, Iraq, has been sentenced to five years in prison by the mullahs’ revolutionary courts after spending three months in detention during which time his whereabouts were unknown. Mr. Moezi, 57, has two children, and has spent time in prison during the Shah’s rule as well as during the 1980s due to supporting the PMOI.
The Iranian Resistance warns about the political prisoners’ lives, especially PMOI supporters, and calls on all international human rights organizations and authorities, especially the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, to refer the human rights violations dossier in Iran to the UN Security Council and adopt immediate and internationally binding measures. The Iranian Resistance also calls for sending a special human rights rapporteur to Iran in order to stop such brutal suppression.
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
February 14, 2009