Physical Condition of “Hossein Sepanta,” Imprisoned Zoroastrian Citizen, Reported as Critical Following Continued Hunger Strike
“Hossein Sepanta,” a Zoroastrian citizen and imprisoned resident of Shiraz, is in poor physical condition following a hunger strike at Adel Abad Prison in Shiraz.
The Campaign to Defend Political and Civil Prisoners reported on Thursday, June 23, that the physical condition of Hossein Sepanta, a Zoroastrian citizen who has been on a hunger strike since April 20, 2019, due to his refusal to accept conditional release and his request for a furlough, has been reported as critical.
According to this report, this prisoner, who is in his fifty-third day of hunger strike, suffered serious injuries to his chest cavity and spinal cord in 2001 as a result of a sudden blow from one of the interrogators during an interrogation session, causing him to lose half of his motor function at that time. Currently, prison authorities and judicial officials are refusing his request for a furlough and conditional release.
Hossein Sepanta was arrested in 2001 by the Intelligence Organization of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps on charges of “anti-system propaganda activities” and was released from prison after six months that same year. He was arrested for a second time in 2013 upon his return from a trip abroad and was sentenced without a lawyer to 13 years and six months in prison. This sentence was reduced to 10 years by an appeals court.
According to the campaign, Hossein Sepanta has also been deprived of visitation rights in recent months.
This is not the first time a prisoner in Iranian prisons has gone on a hunger strike. “Abbas Lesani,” a Turkic activist prisoner, has been on a hunger strike since June 6 of the current year in protest of his inability to access a summary of his case file.
Ruhollah Mardani, a teacher imprisoned in Evin, is also on a dry hunger strike in protest of prison conditions and the violation of prisoners’ rights, including the denial of conditional release and furlough, since late February of the previous year. This imprisoned teacher has gone on hunger strike multiple times over the past two years.
The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom released its latest annual report in April of the current year on the status of religious freedoms in various countries around the world, including Iran.
The report stated that in August 2018, the Iran Action Group at the U.S. Department of State reported on the suppression and targeting of religious minorities by the Islamic Republic regime, stating that Baha’is, Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians, Sunnis, and Sufis are widely subject to discrimination, unfair trials, and unjust prison sentences.
Source: Voice of America
