Political prisoner Saeed Sangar was informed on Saturday, April 11, 2020, that he had received a new 15-year sentence after spending some 20 years in prison.
Mr. Sangar completed serving his 18-year sentence in prison in 2018, but the Iranian Judiciary prevented his release. After two years now, the lawyer appointed by the court informed him that he had to remain another 15 years in prison.
The new verdict had been issued on March 1, 2020 by Branch 2 of the Revolutionary Court, but was not relayed to the prisoner until April 11.
Mr. Sangar did not have even one day of medical leave throughout his years of incarceration.
Saeed Sangar was born in April 1973 in Piranshahr, Iranian Kurdistan (Western Azerbaijan???). He was arrested in September 2000 when he was 27. He was charged with Moharebeh (waging war on God) for having “ties to the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran” and was sentenced to death.
In 2003, the Revision Court commuted his sentenced to life in prison. Later, Mr. Sangar was transferred the Intelligence Ministry Ward 209 of Evin Prison in Tehran. After spending two years in solitary confinement in this prison, he was sent to the Central Prison of Urmia in 2003.
Again on November 5, 2007, he was sent to the Central Prison of Sanandaj, and on September 1, 2015, he was returned to the Central Prison of Urmia.
For 19 years, Saeed Sangar has been continuously harassed and mistreated by prison guards. Reportedly, he has been subjected to 13 mock executions when he felt the noose around his neck.
In March 2017, special guards in the Central Prison of Urmia raided the ward where political prisoners were being held, confiscating Mr. Sangar’s manuscripts. In response to his objection, prison authorities said they were authorized to control all private aspects of the life of all prisoners. A week later, he was summoned to the Counter Intelligence Office of the Central Prison of Urmia and warned against registering the conditions of prison in his writings and memoirs. They said if he continued to write his memoirs or about prison conditions, he would be deprived of having family visitations.
In the 16th year of his incarceration when he was detained in the Central Prison of Urmia, Branch 4 of the Bureau of Implementation of Verdicts in Sanandaj announced that his life sentence had been commuted to 18 years’ imprisonment.
