Kurd political prisoner Kamal Sharifi who was taken to a hospital in Bandar Abbas for an angioplasty was returned to Minab Prison without completing his treatment.
An informed source close to the Kurdish dissident Kamal Sharifi said: “On March 7, the political prisoner who had a heart attack was taken to Payambar-e-Azam Hospital of Bandar Abbas to undergo an angioplasty operation and needed to be hospitalized but was returned to Minab Prison after two days.”
The source said that due to overcrowding and lack of adequate facilities in the prison’s infirmary, confining this inmate will jeopardize his life.
International and Iranian law require prison authorities to provide adequate medical care. Iran’s state prison organization regulations state that, if necessary, detainees must be transferred to a hospital outside the prison facility. The UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners require authorities to transfer all those held needing specialist medical treatment to specialized institutions, including civilian hospitals.
However, Iranian authorities routinly exert pressure upon prisoners, especially prisoners of conscience and political prisoners, through denying them medical treatment.
Many prisoners have either become critically ill or suffer from longstanding and serious medical conditions that have been left untreated in Iran’s prisons.
In an episode that highlights Iranian authorities’ denial of crucial medical care to prisoners of conscience, prisoner of conscience Behnam Mahjoubi died on February 21, 2021, after untreated serious neurological issues.
Kurdish political prisoner Kamal Sharifi is serving 13th year of a 30-year sentence at Minab Prison of Hormozgan Province, where is far from his residence.
The political prisoner who is from Saqqez, western Iran was detained by MOIS forces on May 25, 2008.
At the time of arrest, the security forces started shooting as a result of which one of his comrades was killed. He was in detention at Sanandaj Intelligence for six months on the charge of “membership at Kurdistan Democratic Party” and was interrogated there. He was under physical and mental torture to have arbitrary confessions. Since the time of his arrest Kamal Sharifi had just once had the chance to meet his family after he went on hunger strike a while after he was taken to Minab Prison.
