Kurdish political prisoner Naib Asgari held in Urmia Prison fainted on Thursday, March 10, and prison officials refused to provide him medical care.
The political prisoner, who has been suffering from a kidney disease for the past few months, has been experiencing seizures and anesthesia due to the pressures caused by his hunger strike and long-term detention in solitary confinement.
Mr. Asgari, along with other political prisoners detained in Urmia Prison, went on a hunger strike on December 12, 2021 to protest the decision of prison officials to transfer them to a high-security ward.
On Monday, January 10, the Special Prison Guard raided political prisoners’s ward and transferred some of them to solitary confinement.
Several prisoners, including Naib Askari, were taken to the Iranian Intelligence Service detention center in Urmia.
Withholding medical treatment is a common tactic used by Iranian authorities to put pressure on political prisoners.
Amnesty International, United Nations Experts, and other human rights organizations have documented numerous occasions on which authorities deprived prisoners in Iran of needed care.
While the actual number is unknown, at least three political prisoners died as a result of inadequate medical treatment or ill treatment in Iran in 2021 including Adel Kianpour, Sasan Niknafs, and Behman Mahjoubi.
