Serious concerns over unlawful exile of jailed activist to Rajai Shahr Prison

Iran-HRM – Political prisoner Saeed Eghbali is being held in solitary confinement with two death-row prisoners after he was banished from Evin Prison to Rajai Shahr Prison in Karaj.

Prison officials have told Saeed Eghbali that he will be transferred to a ward holding common criminals and that they have no responsibility to protect his life and health.

Saeed Eghbali was abruptly banished to Raja’i Shahr Prison in Karaj, a major city west of the Iranian capital.

The move followed the sudden transfer of other political prisoners and activists including Atena Daemi, Maryam Akbari Monfared, and Esmail Abdi.

Political prisoners including peaceful activists, religious minorities, and dissidents are being sent to prisons in remote location as a form of additional punishment.

Human rights activist Saeed Eghbali was serving a 5-year prison sentence in the notorious Evin Prison since May 2020.

The Iranian regime is obliged to keep prisoners in different sections based on the severity of their crimes and their prior records.

Article 69 of the prisons organization’s regulations states that: “All convicts, upon being admitted to walled prisons or rehabilitation centers, will be separated based on the type and duration of their sentence, prior record, character, morals and behavior, in accordance with decisions made by the Prisoners Classification Council.”
But political prisoners continue to be transferred to and held in prisons and wards with inmates convicted of violent crimes or with substance abuse issues.

By placing political prisoners beside criminals, Iranian authorities endanger their lives. There have been multiple reports that the political prisoners were attacked by criminal inmates.

In the latest incident, 21-year-old political prisoner Alireza Shir-Mohammad-Ali was stabbed to death by two inmates in the infamous Greater Tehran Penitentiary on June 10, 2019.

Shir-Mohammad-Ali had been sentenced to eight years in prison for “spreading propaganda against the regime,” and insulting the founder of the mullah’s regime, Khomeini and its current Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

Between March 14 and April 19, 2019, the young prisoner had gone on hunger strike to protest the dangers facing inmates in the ward.