Reporting by PMOI/MEK
Iran, February 9, 2021—The inhuman mullahs’ regime sentenced political prisoners Zahra Safaei and her daughter Parastoo Moeini to eight- and six-year prison terms respectively. The regime’s Ministry of Intelligence (MOIS) also framed up new charges against two other political prisoners, Majid Assadi and Mohammad Amirkhizi, on charges of supporting the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK). The two prisoners were sentenced to an additional year in prison while their prison term is over.
Political prisoner, Zahra Safaei, 58, has been in prison since February 2020. During this time, she has been under constant torture and interrogation. She has been sentenced to eight years in prison on charges of “conspiracy and propaganda against the state” and “insulting regime supreme leader Ali Khamenei.”
Safaei is also a former political prisoner in the 80s. She was imprisoned from 1981 to 1988.
Her father, Haj Hossein Ali Safaei, was a supporter of the MEK and a political prisoner during the Shah time. He was arrested and executed by the mullahs’ regime in 1981.
In recent months, Zahra Safaei and her daughter have been under immense pressure, torture, and ill-treatment. The regime has tried to force them to confess and give TV interviews against MEK, but they refused. In March 2020, they were transferred to Gharchak prison in Varamin and held with dangerous and criminal prisoners.
Safaei suffers from severe liver dysfunction, but the prison chief Soqra Khodadadi is preventing her from receiving medical treatment at a hospital. In June 2020, Parastoo Moeini was infected with Covid-19 in Gharchak prison but was deprived of proper treatment.
On the other hand, to prevent the release of political prisoners Majid Assadi and Mohammad Amir Khizi, both of whom have finished their prison terms, the MOIS has framed up new charges against them. Both are sentenced to one-year additional prison terms.
The regime punishes support for the MEK with heavy sentences. Recently the regime also denied medical care for the Iranian political prisoner Fatemeh Mosanna, held in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison. Ms. Mosanna was arrested on charges of supporting the MEK.
Fatemeh is the sister of Ali, Mostafa, and Morteza Mosanna, three members of the MEK executed by the mullahs’ regime in the 1980s. In February 2012, Mosanna, her husband Hassan Sadeghi, and their two children were arrested while they were holding a mourning ceremony for Gholamhossein Sadeghi, Hassan’s father, an MEK member who died in Camp Liberty, Iraq, due to a medical blockade imposed by the Iran-backed Iraqi government.
The regime also extended the prison sentence of political prisoner Saeed Sangar for another 11 months in January. Sangar is charged with supporting MEK. Having spent more than 20 years behind bars, Saeed Sangar is one of the longest-standing political prisoners in Iran. It is worth noting that during his long period of incarceration, Sangar has not been granted a single day of leave outside the prison.
The lives of these prisoners are in imminent danger. The regime has executed thousands of MEK supporters in the past decades. In the summer of 1988, Iranian regime supreme leader Ruhollah Khomeini ordered the purging of all prisons from opponents of the regime, especially members and sympathizers of the MEK.
In a statement, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), called on again calls on the United Nations Secretary-General, UN High Commissioner of Human Rights, international rights organizations, and the European Union and its member states to take immediate action for the release of these political prisoners.
#Iran: Political Prisoner Zahra Safaei & Her Daughter Parasto Moeini Sentenced To 8 and 6 Years in Prison Respectively. #HumanRights
They were severely tortured and mistreated to make forced television confessions against the #MEK, but they refused.https://t.co/tYDuDw6RRD— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) February 9, 2021
