Abdul Rauf Pahang, a 30-year-old prisoner in Saravan Prison, who was infected with TB, died on the eve of Nowruz and the Iranian New Year on Tuesday morning, March 14, because the torturers denied him medical treatment. Abdul Rauf’s cellmates had repeatedly warned the prison guards about the condition of the prisoner and demanded his transfer to the hospital, but did not receive any response. Recently, tuberculosis has spread in Saravan Prison and some other prisoners have been infected with the disease.
Three days earlier, in the night of March 11, Mohsen Ali Madadi, 50, a prisoner in the prison of Greater Tehran (Fashafouyeh), suffered a heart attack but the prison guards refused to send him to the hospital for medical treatment that led to his death. Prior to him, Hossein Aflatouni, a 43-year-old prisoner, went blind from diabetes due to lack of treatment, and died after a while.
Denial of treatment is a well-known and common method of exerting pressure on prisoners in Iran.
The Iranian Resistance calls on relevant international bodies, including the rapporteur on the right to life, to form an international fact-finding mission to investigate the situation of prisoners and prisons in Iran, including the situation of the sick prisoners.
The barbarism ruling Iran is the disgrace of contemporary humanity and should be rejected from the family of nations. Any interaction with this falling regime should be stopped and conditioned on the suspension of execution and torture and the improvement of the human rights situation in Iran.
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
March 15, 2018