Mohammad Nourizad Released from Evin Prison; “I Would Wound Myself Five Times a Day”

Mohammad Nourizad’s lawyer announced on Wednesday, November 26, on Twitter that his client had been released.

Mohammad Hossein Aghassi also posted a photo of Mohammad Nourizad on his Twitter page with the caption: “Love and nothing else.”

Nourizad’s lawyer had tweeted a day earlier that “we were contacted by the supervisor magistrate of Evin Prison and they announced that the prosecutor has agreed to suspend the execution of your client’s sentence. You must visit the prison supervision department tomorrow to arrange his bail and release.”

Mohammad Nourizad is a prominent critic of the Islamic Republic’s leader and one of 14 civil activists known as the “Group of 14” who in June 2019 issued a statement calling for Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to resign.

He was arrested and imprisoned in August of that year and was subsequently sentenced to 15 years in prison, two years of exile in Izeh, and two years of travel ban.

Nourizad’s lawyer had reported last August of a new conviction against him consisting of eight months in prison, 74 lashes, and one year of exile in Tabas.

“I Would Wound Myself Five Times a Day”

Mohammad Nourizad went on hunger strikes multiple times in prison and engaged in self-harm.

On Wednesday, after his release from prison, in a video released on social media, he said he was informed today that he had been released “while I was on strike and wounding myself five times a day, and today I inflicted my eighty-fifth wound on myself.”

In this video, wounds on Nourizad’s head are visible. Referring to his release after “three weeks of hunger and medication strike,” he said: “I do not feel any pleasure at all that I have been released. My happiness is for the day when our land is freed. Political prisoners should be released as a priority.”

Nourizad had also announced on May 29 of this year by releasing an audio file his intention for “protest suicide” due to harassment of his family.

A cybergroup called “Adalet Ali” had previously released two confidential letters from communications between Evin Prison officials regarding Mohammad Nourizad’s self-harm.

In one of these letters, addressed to the Performance Management, Inspection, and Complaint Response Department of Tehran Province prisons, it was written that Mohammad Nourizad “according to the statement of the director of this facility’s sixth ward continues his self-harm and hunger strike.”

In another letter, Gholamreza Mohammadi, then head of information protection at Evin detention center, reported to the head of information protection of Tehran Province prisons that Mohammad Nourizad “since his transfer to this detention facility has repeatedly distributed falsehoods and issued statements. For a period his phone card was blocked by judicial order, but after obtaining a commitment from him not to conduct interviews or distribute statements, his card was reactivated by judicial order. However, after some time, he again conducted interviews, distributed falsehoods, and issued statements.”

Source: Voice of America