Reported by PMOI/MEK
Iran, June 4, 2019 – A young female political prisoner in Ahvaz prison is denied medical care, according to reports from inside Iran.
Ameneh Zaheri Sari, 20, a graduate student in accounting is held in Ahvaz Sepidar Prison. The prison authorities prevent her from receiving medical treatment in a hospital outside the prison. Prison hospital is incapable of providing adequate relief to this young woman.
Ameneh has developed lumps and swelling in different parts of her body unfamiliar to the doctors in the prison clinic. She has requested transfer to a hospital outside the prison for further investigations and proper diagnosis. But the prison authorities are denying her the treatment. She, even according to the prison medics, needs immediate medical care and treatment that can only be provided at a competent hospital outside the prison, a warning that the prison authorities neglect to heed.
Although, Ms. Zaheri’s family have managed to gather 300 million tomans (over $70,000) to pay for her bail bond, allowed by the 12th interrogation branch of the Court of Ahvaz to facilitate her transfer to an outside hospital, the brutal prison officials at the Spidar Prison are rejecting the bail bond forcing this young woman to suffer.
Her family and friends are extremely concerned and say her health is deteriorating every day and she needs to receive emergency medical care at a hospital.
Ameneh Zaheri Sari, her father, and her brother were among hundreds of people arrested in November 2018 in Khuzestan province.
The wave of arrest followed a protest turned deadly clash between protesters and the repressive state security forces. The authorities used the clashes as a pretext to round up hundreds of Arab ethnic minorities, among them civil society and political activists. The aim was to crush the dissent in Arab neighborhoods of the Khuzestan province.
The scale of the arrest and the harsh treatment of political prisoners have got Philip Luther, Amnesty International Research director for the Middle East and South Africa deeply concerned.
“The scale of arrests in recent weeks is deeply alarming,” said Philip Luther. “The timing suggests that the Iranian authorities are using the attack in Ahvaz as an excuse to strike against members of the Ahvazi Arab ethnic minority, including civil society and political activists, in order to crush dissent in Khuzestan province,”
Political and minority rights activists can be seen among those arrested. Activists from a number of towns and villages including Ahwaz, Hamidiyeh, Khorramshahr, and Shush have been arrested in recent raids.
