Political prisoner Mehran Gharahbaghi’s health deteriorated in the Sheiban Prison of Ahvaz, southwest Iran. He has been denied medical treatment despite suffering from heart conditions, and scabies (which he contracted due to prison’s poor and unsanitary conditions).
According to informed sources, the water and food condition in Sheiban prison in Ahvaz is terribly bad. Prison food is inedible and drinking water is contaminated and mixed with the sewage water.
Therefore, prisoners contract skin-related illnesses. Political prisoner Mehran Gharebaghi contracted scabies after being transferred from Behbahan Prison to Shiban Prison in Ahvaz.
According to the same source, prison authorities do not provide him with the medicine he needs (Benzyl Benzoate) to treat scabies infestation. They only gave him some sulfur soap and sprayed the prison once. Prison authorities do not even deliver the medicines his family brought to him.
Mehran Gharahbaghi has contracted heart disease in prison.
Prison doctors warned he needed heart surgery hospitalization, but a ministry of intelligence interrogator refused.
He showed symptoms of COVID-19 on August 19 in Sheiban Prison, known for its inhumane conditions. However, he was denied proper treatment on the order of ministry of intelligence and interrogator.
The IRGC arrested Mehran Gharabaghi on December 19, 2019, and transferred him to Behbahan Prison after interrogating and torturing him for a month.
Gharabaghi was transferred from Behbahan Prison to the MOIS Detention Center in Ahvaz on July 12, 2020, and new charges were filed against him.
On December 25, 2021, he was transferred to Sheiban Prison in Ahvaz.
The new charges were issued by Seyed-Nasser Taheri-Nasab, an investigator with Branch 3 of the Behbahan “Public and Revolutionary Prosecutor’s Office.”
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 due to inadequate medical treatment or ill-treatment in Iran in 2021 including Adel Kianpour, Sasan Niknafs, and Behman Mahjoubi.
