Kurdish political prisoner on hunger strike to protest medical negligence

2015-06-06 10:43:31

NEWS CENTER (DİHA) - According to reports submitted to KHRN, Alireza Rasouli, a Kurdish political prisoner has started a hunger strike on May 30, in protest of being neglected and refused medical leave. 

The KHRN source stated that “Alireza Rasouli has been suffering from a tumour in his hip and an infection in his lungs diagnosed a year ago. This is the third time he is protesting against medical negligence towards his health condition by going on hunger strike. In the past few days, he has been vomiting blood as a result of the deterioration of the infection in his lungs. In spite of a recommendation by the prison clinic to grant medical leave for treatment and a formal request from the prison warden, the Iranian Intelligence Office blocked the decision and the revolutionary court rejected the application for medical leave. The Intelligence Office has attempted to constrain Alireza to collaborate in exchange for the medical leave.”

“On June 2, Alireza was transferred to the prison clinic due to his critical health condition and there the personnel asked him to end his hunger strike in order to take IV but he declined. In response, the clinic personnel opened a new emergency file for him and proposed to transfer him to the forensics for further examinations. The doctors inside the clinic have acknowledged that his current health condition will make serving his prison sentence impossible. Therefore they sent his case will to Mahabad’s prosecutor to issue a medical leave as soon as possible”, the source added. 

Alireza Rasouli and a group of Kurdish activists were arrested in February of 2013 in Mahabad. He was arrested in accusations of distributing assertions on the international mother-tongue language day and attending the protests in support of Shinabad children. Rasouli was sentenced to three and a half years of imprisonment by Mahabad revolutionary court on charge of "acting against National Security". Later, in March of 2014, Rasouli was sentenced again to 91 days of suspended imprisonment in a separate case in Sardasht Revolutionary Court on charges of crossing the border. In the beginning of 2015, he began another hunger strike in Orumiyeh prison which lasted 49 days. He and Khezer Rasoul were transferred from Orumiyeh to Mahabad in March 2015. 

(nt)