Political prisoner Bahauddin Ghassemzadeh has been taken to solitary confinement since Saturday after he protested the authorities insulting his family in the visitation hall of the Urmia Central Prison.
Reports indicate that Mr. Ghassemzadeh has started a hunger strike ever since.
On Saturday, January 5, 2019 the prison guard, Hossein Sobhani insulted and disrespected the political prisoner’s wife and daughters in the visitations hall in front of him and during the family meetings. This angered and upset Mr. Ghassemzadeh and led to a physical encounter between the political prisoner and the prison guard.
Having learned of the prison guard’s disrespectful behavior, the rest of the families who had come to visit their imprisoned loved ones supported the political prisoner and his family, which inevitably caused the warden to enter the visitation hall and pretend to have dealt with the prison guard.
After the visitations, the warden of the Central Prison of Urmia summoned Bahauddin Ghassemzadeh and told him that he had committed an offense, and the visitation hall was like a “cabaret!” The warden’s insult caused another protest by the political prisoner and he was eventually transferred to solitary confinement.
Hamzeh Boroujeni, the director general of the prisons, had a similar approach towards this political prisoner when he told him, “The warden was right. You have all committed an offense, and the visitation hall is just like a cabaret. And the guards do have their own behavior in any way!” To silence the political prisoner, he continued by saying, “I know you have a mobile phone, and will spread the news outside to the media of the Mojahedin and the Democratic Party.”