Reporting by PMOI/MEK
Iran, September 4, 2020—Iranian political prisoner Arzhang Davoodi continues to suffer at the hands of regime authorities, according to reports from inside Iran’s prisons. The 67-year old Davoodi has been in prison since 2003 when he was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment, five years deprivation of his social rights, and domestic exile to the city of Zabol, southeast Iran, by the regime’s Revolutionary Court. The charges raised against him related to “insulting the regime’s current supreme leader Ali Khamenei.”
The prison in Zabol, where Davoodi is currently being held, is 1500 km from his hometown, making it extremely difficult for his family to visit him. In 2016, an additional five years was added to his sentence on charges of supporting the Iranian opposition People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK), and authorities confiscated all of Davoodi’s properties.
The Iranian Resistance calls for urgent action on Arzhang Davoodi’s serious medical condition and the United Nations, the UN Human Rights Counicl and Amnesty International to dispatch observers to visit Davoodi in Zabol prison.
According to reports from Zabol prison, located in Sistan & Baluchistan province of southeast Iran, Arzhang Davoodi is held in a small solitary confinement cell and deprived of any facilities.
He is in pain and suffers from gastrointestinal infection due to the inhuman conditions of imprisonment and captivity.
Despite his old age Davoodi has been deprived of free airtime and sunlight except for one hour a day. On the other hand, according to an informed source, a refrigerator and other appliances that Arzhang Davoodi had purchased with his own money were stolen and looted by prison authorities, and he is facing difficulties without even minimum appliances and necessities during the extreme summer heat of Zabol.
Having platinum in his legs, Davoodi also suffers from severe cold in winter.
It is worth noting that in 2017, the criminal director and deputy director of the prison in Zahedan, a city in southeast Iran, threw Davoodi from the second floor and injured his leg and pelvis. He still has difficulty walking.
The life of this elderly political prisoner is in danger after 17 years of imprisonment, transferring him to areas with extreme weather conditions, and prisons that do not have the least facilities and welfare services.