Zeinab Jalalian, Kurdish Political Prisoner, Infected with Coronavirus
Reports indicate that Zeinab Jalalian, the only female political prisoner sentenced to life imprisonment, has contracted COVID-19 in Qarchak Prison.
Ali Jalalian, the father of Zeinab Jalalian, a Kurdish political prisoner in Iran, announced the news to the Kurdistan Human Rights Network, stating that Zeinab Jalalian was transferred to the prison’s medical ward on June 4 due to severe shortness of breath, and after examination and testing by a physician, she was diagnosed with COVID-19.
The father of this political prisoner stated that despite the diagnosis of this disease, “prison authorities, on the orders of the Ministry of Intelligence, are refusing to transfer her to a hospital.”
According to this report, Zeinab Jalalian said in her last phone call with her family yesterday that she is being held with several other coronavirus-infected prisoners in a separate room in the prison’s quarantine section and continues to experience high fever and shortness of breath. The prison’s medical officer also told her that the virus has affected her lungs and they are attempting to control the lung infection through medication.
Zeinab Jalalian’s father, while expressing concern about his daughter’s health, has called for her urgent transfer to a hospital outside the prison.
Zeinab Jalalian, who is serving the eleventh year of her sentence in Khoy Prison, is from Makoo city and was arrested in Kermanshah in March 2008.
Iran’s judicial system convicted her of moharebeh (enmity against God) and membership in a Kurdish political party, initially sentencing her to death, which was later changed to life imprisonment in an appeals court.
Source: Voice of America
