Farzin Rezaei Roshan, a political prisoner who has been in prison since March 2020, has been transferred to Aminabad psychiatric hospital in southern Tehran’s Shahr-e-Rey district.
Babak Paknia, the prisoner’s lawyer, wrote on his Twitter account that the coroner’s office had written a letter in 2017 stating that Mr. Rezaei Roshan was suffering from personality and mood disorders.
Paknia wrote that he had told the supervising judge that his client needed treatment and that he had now heard that Farzin Rezaei Roshan had been sent to Aminabad Hospital.
Farzin Rezaei Roshan has been sentenced to four years in prison by Branch 26 of the Revolutionary Court on charges of “spreading propaganda against the state and assembly and collusion against national security.”
The sentence against Mr. Roshan has been issued while according to Article 149 of the Islamic Penal Code, those who suffer from mental illness are not criminally liable.
The transfer of Farzin Rezaei Roshan to Aminabad Hospital has caused concern on social media, and some Twitter users have expressed concern about his situation, referring to the death of Behnam Mahjoubi who died in custody on February 21, 2021, after authorities failed to care for his medical condition.
In October 2020, Mahjoubi was sent against his will to a psychiatric clinic after prison interference with his medical treatment led to his partial paralysis. Evin authorities had been blocking Mahjoubi’s access to panic disorder medications provided by family members since August 2020.
A former political prisoner and the friend of dissident Behnam Mahjoubi, Ebrahim Allah Bakhshi said in a tweet that Farzin Rezaei Roshan is kept in the section two of Aminabad where Behnam Mahjoubi was tortured.
The death of Mahjoubi after untreated medical conditions that included serious neurological issues, reflected the condition of prisoners, especially prisoners of conscience and political prisoners who are subjected to torture including being denied access to proper medical treatment.
In recent months at several other similar cases have been reported in which political prisoners were transferred to psychiatric hospitals instead of receiving medical treatment in a hospital.
