Zeinab Jalalian, a female Kurdish political prisoner sentenced to life imprisonment, who was in limbo about three months in solitary confinement in Kerman Central Prison, was transferred to Dizel Abad Prison in Kermanshah.
According to the Campaign for the Defense of Political and Civil Prisoners, Zeinab Jalalian, a Kurdish female political prisoner who had been transferred from the quarantine ward of Qarchak Prison in Varamin to Kerman Central Prison on Thursday, June 25, 2020 without prior notice, while infected with coronavirus and on hunger strike, after 3 months of indecision and detention in solitary confinement in Kerman Central Prison, was transferred to Dizel Abad Prison in Kermanshah on Thursday, September 25th 2020.
This Kurdish political prisoner has been indeterminately transferred from one prison to another for more than a year and was banished from the quarantine ward of Qarchak Prison in Varamin to Kerman Central Prison on Thursday, June 25th 2020.
She is serving her 13th year of imprisonment and was relocated from Khoy Prison in West Azerbaijan Province, northwestern Iran, to the quarantine ward of Qarchak Prison in Varamin, a city in Tehran Province, on Wednesday, April 29th 2020, for unknown reasons.
Zeinab Jalalian had gone on a hunger strike since June 31st (2020), requesting to return to Khoy Prison or to be moved to Evin Prison, as well as receiving medical treatment after her infection with Covid-19, however, she was transferred on sixth day of her hunger strike on June 25th to Kerman Central Prison.
Earlier, Ali Jalalian, the father of political prisoner Zeinab Jalalian had announced her infection with coronavirus in Qarchak Prison in Varamin, saying: “On the night of Tuesday, June 2nd (2020), she was taken to the dispensary of Qarchak Prison due to severe shortness of breath, and following examination and testing, she was diagnosed with Covid-19, but prison authorities refused to transfer her to the hospital on the orders of the Ministry of Intelligence.”
She still had a fever and shortness of breath and was being held in a separate room the quarantine ward of Qarchak Prison along with several other prisoners contracted Covid-19, Zeinab Jalalian said in her last call with her family on Saturday, June 6th 2020.
It is worth mentioning that the doctor of Qarchak Prison clinic had told Zeinab Jalalian that the virus had infected her lungs and that they were trying to control the lungs infection through medicine.
According to Zeinab Jalalian’s family, she was transferred on Wednesday, April 29th (2020) and Thursday to Urmia, Kermanshah and Evin Prison with blindfolds and handcuffs and eventually, due to the prisons refusal to accept her, security forces took this prisoner to Qarchak Prison in Varamin.
“She was transferred to the quarantine ward of Qarchak Prison in Varamin, while about 80 prisoners who have been transferred to this prison in recent days, are being held there, and due to the spread of coronavirus in prison, her family is very worried about her condition,” a source close to Zeinab Jalalian’s family added.
According to human rights sources, the sudden transfer of this political prisoner occurred while she was suffering from petregium and aphtha based on the doctor’s certificate.
In a statement issued in March 2020, Amnesty International called the imprisonment of Kurdish political prisoner Zeinab Jalalian unfair and called for an end to it.
Zeinab Jalalian, born in 1982, from the village of Dim Qeshlagh in Maku County, West Azerbaijan Province, was beaten and arrested on March 10, 2008, at the age of 25 by the Kermanshah intelligence agents on the Kermanshah-Sanandaj road.
The reason for her arrest was her cooperation with the political Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK).
The Kurdish political prisoner was transferred to the Kermanshah Intelligence Agency after her arrest.
Her political and social activities have concentrated on the impowerment of women belonging to Iranian Kurdish minority and fulfillment of the Kurds’ right to self-determination.
Zeinab Jalalian was held in solitary confinement without access to a lawyer. She was sentenced to death in December 2009 in a few minutes in a closed court without the presence of a lawyer on charges of “waging war against God (muharebeh) through membership in the PJAK group.” The verdict was upheld by the Supreme Court and communicated to her.
Despite no evidence that Zeinab Jalalian was involved in PJAK’s armed activities, Branch 1 of the Kermanshah court charged her with” armed action against the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
According to media reports and information obtained, the death sentence of this political prisoner was commuted to life imprisonment on November 20, 2011, but so far she has not been notified of any sentence and despite physical problems such as visual impairment and the risk of losing her eyesight, she remains in jail without even one day leave and suffers from numerous diseases.
She has said that during this period, intelligence agents have tortured her, including flogging on the soles of her feet, punching her in the abdomen, banging her head against walls, and threatening to rape her.
Zeinab Jalalian’s trial was grossly unfair and lasted no more than a few minutes.
After referring to Zeinab Jalalian’s cooperation with the PJAK political party and her several visits between Iran and Iraq, the court wrote in the final verdict: “She may have participated in terrorist operations that refuses to tell the truth.” This argument is a clear violation of the principle of innocence, according to which the accused has the right to be presumed innocent unless proven guilty in accordance with the law in a fair trial without any reasonable doubt by the prosecutor.
Zeinab Jalalian was allowed to get a lawyer a few weeks before the trial.
However, her trial was held without the presence and knowledge of her lawyer. Her death sentence was upheld by an appeals court in May 2009, but was later commuted to life imprisonment with a pardon by the Supreme Leader in December 2011.
In April 2016, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention called on the Iranian authorities to release Zeinab Jalalian immediately, as she had been detained only for the peaceful exercise of the right to freedom of expression and the right to freedom of communication though political and social activism for the rights of the Kurdish women in the PJAK civilian party.
The UN body stated that Zeinab Jalalian had been deprived of her right to a fair trial and the way she had been treated violated the principle of non-torture and other behaviors and punishments have been cruel, inhumane and degrading.
During her long years in prison, Zeinab Jalalian has been repeatedly deprived of her basic rights, including access to adequate medical care. Refusal of the authorities to provide medical services to prisoner is considered torture if it is intended to punish, intimidate, extract confession or discriminate against, and causes severe pain and suffering to the prisoner.
Despite humiliation and obscenity, Zeinab Jalalian was subjected to the most severe mental and physical torture during her detention in the Intelligence Department detention center for a month.
After an argument with her investigator, the Kurdish political prisoner was transferred to the “Correctional Center of Dizel Abad Prison in Kermanshah” for torture and humiliation, which is 5 kms away from the main Dizel Abad Prison, and spent 7 years there.
“Zeinab Jalalian” has suffered from vision problems during and after her detention due to severe physical torture, and has been suffering from visual impairment ever since.
This political prisoner is the only female political prisoner in Iran who has been sentenced to “life imprisonment” and has been serving her sentence without a day on leave for more than 13 years.