Mohammad Nourizad released from Evin Prison; "I used to stab myself five times a day"

On Wednesday, November 16, Mohammad Nourizad's lawyer announced his client's release in a tweet.

Mohammad Hossein Aghasi also posted a photo of Mohammad Nourizad on his Twitter page, with the caption: "Love and nothing else."

Mr. Nourizad's lawyer had tweeted a day earlier that "I was contacted by the Evin Prison Supervision Office and they announced that the prosecutor has agreed to suspend the execution of your client's sentence, and you must contact the Evin Prison Supervision Office tomorrow to secure his bail and release him."

Mohammad Nourizad is a prominent critic of the Leader of the Islamic Republic and one of 14 civil activists known as "Group 14" who issued a statement in June 2019 calling for the resignation of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

He was arrested and imprisoned in August of that year, and then sentenced to 15 years in prison, two years of exile to Izeh, and a two-year ban on leaving the country.

Mr. Nourizad's lawyer announced in August last year that he had been sentenced to eight months in prison, 74 lashes, and one year of exile to Tabas.

"I used to inflict five wounds on myself a day"

Mohammad Nourizad repeatedly went on hunger strikes and attempted self-harm in prison.

After his release from prison on Wednesday, he said in a video posted on social media that he was informed today that he had been released "while I was on strike and I was inflicting five wounds on myself a day, and today I inflicted the eighty-fifth wound on myself."

In the video, Mr. Nourizad can be seen with wounds on his head. Referring to his release after a “three-week hunger strike and drug strike,” he said: “I don’t feel happy at all that I was freed. My happiness is the day our land is liberated. Political prisoners should be released first.”

On May 25 of this year, Mr. Nourizad released an audio file announcing his intention to commit "suicide in protest" due to the harassment of his family.

The cyber group known as "Justice Ali" had previously published two confidential letters from the correspondence of Evin Prison officials regarding the "self-harm" of Mohammad Nourizad.

One of these letters, addressed to the Department of Performance, Inspection, and Complaints Response of Tehran Province Prisons, states that Mohammad Nourizad "has continued to self-harm and hunger strike, according to the announcement of the head of the prison's sixth ward."

In another letter, Gholamreza Mohammadi, then head of information protection at Evin Detention Center, reported to the head of information protection and information at Tehran Province Prisons that Mohammad Nourizad "had repeatedly attempted to publish lies and issue statements since his transfer to this detention center. For a while, his phone card was blocked by a judicial order, but after obtaining a commitment from him not to interview or publish statements, his card was reactivated by a judicial order, but after a while, the person in question began to interview, publish lies, and issue statements."

Source: Voice of America