Political prisoner Mohammad Ali (Pirooz) Mansouri has been deprived of necessary medical care and sick leave.
He has been serving his 15th year in Raja’i Shahr Prison in the city of Karaj, near the capital, Tehran.
Mansouri’s daughter, Iran Mansouri, wrote a letter to Javid Rahman, the Special Rapporteur on human rights in Iran, expressing concern about her father’s condition.
The letter was also sent to Amnesty International and the UN Human Rights Council.
Iran Mansouri wrote in the letter, “My father was rushed to a hospital in September 2021 due to a heart attack and underwent immediate heart surgery.
He has not been allowed to temporarily leave the prison despite the sensitivity of his heart condition and the doctor’s emphasis that imprisonment could endanger his health. He has spent 15 years in prison and his sentence will be completed in less than two months. However, he has been denied furlough because of a second sentence issued against him in prison.”
She said that “prison doctors also stressed that he should be under the supervision of a doctor. But they do not allow him medical treatment and do not send him on medical leave to be under doctor supervision.”
According to Article 520 of Iran’s Criminal Code, prisoners suffering from acute illnesses are eligible for five days of leave if approved by the prosecutor. Article 522 states that prisoners who require medical treatment outside the prison for non-urgent issues are eligible for release for a period of time determined by a criminal court judge.
However, as a form of additional punishment, political prisoners are routinely denied furlough and temporary leave.
Arrested in 2007 for collaborating with the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK), Mansouri was sentenced to 15 years in prison for the charge of “moharebeh,” or waging war against the state.
In May 2018, he was sentenced to additional five years after being tried without a lawyer.
He was prosecuted for going on a hunger strike, writing statements against capital punishment, penning open letters, and other peaceful activism.
At that time he was eligible for conditional release after spending more than a decade in Iran’s Rajaee Shahr and Evin Prisons.
Mansouri went on a hunger strike along with more than a dozen political prisoners at Rajaie Shahr Prison in August 2017, protesting the inhuman conditions they have been forced to endure at a maximum-security ward.
