Political prisoner Arzhang Davoudi, recently held in Central Zahedan Prison, south east of Iran, has staged hunger strike and refused his medications since March 3, 2017 in the quarantine section of this jail.
The 64 year old prisoner was taken to this facility’s quarantine ward on January 6, 2018 where inmates with murder and drug charges are held. During this period Arzhang Davoudi had been denied medical care despite suffering from diabetes.
He had been deprived of fresh air and family visit as well.
Davoudi protested to the harsh condition by staging hunger strike. After a while on the order of the warden, Mohammadhossein Khosravi, he was taken to a 180*160 meters solitary confinement with handcuffs and shackles.
Arzhang Davoudi, 64, was born in the city of Abadan and has an engineering degree from the University of Texas in Ausin. He has been imprisoned for the last 14 years after first being arrested in 2003 for criticizing Iran’s human rights record in a documentary film titled Forbidden Iran. The film investigated the death in suspicious circumstances of Zahra Kazemi, a Canadian-Iranian photojournalist. Human rights activists say that she was raped multiple times and tortured to death by the Iranian regime. The regime said that she died of a stroke while in custody.
During his time in prison, Arzhang Davoudi has suffered torture, beatings and solitary confinement and was denied access to basic hygiene products and kept in unsanitary conditions. Amnesty International regards Arzhang Davoudi as a “prisoner of conscience” and is calling on the Iranian regime to release him immediately.
