Kurdish Iranian woman Soada Khadirzadeh attempted suicide after being summoned and threatened by intelligence agents.
She hanged herself in the women’s ward of Urmia prison and gave pills to her two-month-old child.
According to the Hengaw Organization website, she hanged herself with a scarf on August 18.
The other prisoners reacted in time, untied the scarf, and transferred the prisoner and her child to the prison’s clinic while they were both in critical condition.
Two days earlier, prison authorities and officers from Urmia Intelligence Department summoned and interrogated Soada Khadirzadeh on Tuesday, August 2.
The prison authorities had pressured Soada Khadirzadeh to cooperate with them and reveal the connection between the women’s ward of Urmia prison and human rights organizations.
Prison authorities in recent months, pressured and tortured her by denying her specialized medical care she required outside of prison, including for heart and kidney problems.
Soada Khadirzadeh gave birth to her baby on June 20, 2022, after two weeks of delay. She was returned to the women’s ward of Urmia Central Prison that evening after a cesarean section without completing her treatment.
Soada Khadirzadeh went on a hunger strike from Tuesday, April 26, to Saturday, May 7, in protest of being imprisoned for seven months without standing trial. She ended her strike after 11 days when prison authorities promised that she would be transferred to a medical center or granted temporary release on bail.
Political prisoner Soada Khadirzadeh, 32, is from Piranshahr, West Azerbaijan Province. Intelligence agents in Piranshahr, West Azerbaijan province arrested her on October 14, 2021. It is so far not known why and on what charges she was arrested.
She had released an audio recording from inside the prison in which she said that she was held in a ministry of intelligence detention center in Piranshahr and subjected to intense interrogations before being transferred to the women’s ward of Urumieh prison over three weeks later, where she has been held since then. According to an informed source, So’ada Khadirzadeh has never been permitted access to a lawyer since her arrest.
On November 8, 2021, she was transferred from the IRGC detention center to the Central Prison of Urmia. She has been deprived of family visits or having access to a lawyer throughout her detention.
