Reprimand Without Change in Prison Conditions: Dismissal of Two Officials Over Alireza Shirmohammadi’s Death
31 days after the killing of Alireza Shirmohammadi, a political prisoner, in Fashafuyeh Prison, and following widespread protests over multiple deaths of political prisoners in prisons, Mostafa Mohammadi, General Director of Tehran Province Prisons, was dismissed and Hashmatolah Hayat al-Ghaib, who was previously the General Director of Prisons in Fars Province, took his place from Tuesday, July 1st, but none of the judicial authorities have commented on ending the non-implementation of the principle of separating crimes in prisons, and political and ideological prisoners continue to be held alongside prisoners with “dangerous” offenses in many prisons.
Moreover, the investigation results ordered by the Head of the Judiciary regarding this killing have not been released so far, and it remains unclear which individuals are responsible for this killing and whether policies have been considered to prevent repetition of prisoner deaths.
One day earlier, on July 9th, Farzadi, the head of Tehran’s Great Prison (Fashafuyeh), was also dismissed from his position. Protests against Alireza Shirmohammadi’s death in Fashafuyeh Prison due to failure to enforce the law of separating crimes have so far had only two consequences: replacing the head of Tehran’s Great Prison and the General Director of Tehran Province Prisons. However, no decision has yet been made to fully implement the law of separating crimes as stipulated in the regulations of the Iranian Prison Organization.
A lawyer who requested anonymity for security reasons told the Human Rights Campaign in Iran, referring to the fact that dismissing the head of Tehran Province Prisons does not solve the problem: “Basically, it doesn’t make much sense that instead of reprimanding the prison head and holding him accountable, the head of one province’s prisons is replaced. Unless the failure to separate prisoners based on the crime was by order of Tehran’s prison head, which according to my years of experience and visits to prisons, basically the directorship of one province’s prisons does not have an executive role, and it is each prison head who is the decision-maker and gives orders regarding that prison’s inmates.”
This lawyer, who is more focused on human rights cases, told the campaign: “The question is, if this issue of non-separation was given attention, why isn’t immediate action taken to separate among the category of political prisoners? What matters here is the implementation of rules and regulations regarding the separation of political prisoners from other prisoners, which is certainly the understanding of Mr. Esmaili, the spokesman of the judiciary, who says that we don’t have political prisoners in Iranian prisons at all, so perhaps they are right not to carry out any separation. Of course, he doesn’t realize that it is the law that defines what a political crime is and who political offenders are, not his personal interpretation when he says that in my opinion we no longer have political prisoners.”
Iranian news agencies, in announcing the dismissal of the former head of Tehran Prisons Organization, reported that this decision occurred due to the killing of Alireza Shirmohammadi. The government news agency IRNA also, in a report introducing the new head of Tehran Prisons Organization, considered the reason for Mostafa Mohammadi’s dismissal to be the result of a special committee’s review that was formed by the Head of the Judiciary to investigate the cause of Shirmohammadi’s death in prison.
Alireza Shirmohammadi, a 21-year-old ideological prisoner, was killed on June 10th by two inmates convicted of murder and drug offenses in Tehran’s Fashafuyeh Prison with knife wounds. The reason for this killing was the non-enforcement of the law of separating crimes in prisons and the detention of dangerous prisoners alongside political and ideological prisoners. A point that political prisoners and even Alireza Shirmohammadi himself had requested from prison authorities before his death, but it was never implemented.
Mostafa Mohammadi began working as the head of Iran’s Prison Organization in 2016 and was dismissed from his job less than three years later. However, it is now unclear what new position has been given to Mr. Mohammadi after his dismissal from this key position. Mostafa Mohammadi, one day before his own dismissal, dismissed Farzadi, the head of Tehran’s Great Prison, from his position. Farzadi was appointed as head of Tehran’s Great Prison in February 2018 but was dismissed from his position less than two years later. Before that, he had served for 9 years as the director of the central prison in Kermanshah and for four years as the head of Kermanshah’s therapeutic work camp.
As for Hashmatolah Hayat al-Ghaib, the new head of Tehran Province Prisons, he was previously the head of Prisons Organization in Fars Province but detailed information about him is not available. During his tenure, Mehdi Hajati, a young member of Shiraz City Council, was sent to Adel Abad Prison, where he is now held alongside prisoners with dangerous offenses. In Adel Abad Prison in Shiraz, just like in Fashafuyeh and many other prisons, the law of separating crimes is not observed, and political and non-political prisoners, Bahai’s and Kyrie Christians are held alongside dangerous prisoners, murderers and drug dealers.
The Result of One Prisoner’s Death: Only the Dismissal of Two Officials
Alireza Shirmohammadi, a 21-year-old prisoner and only child, was arrested on July 14, 2018, and after 36 days in solitary confinement was transferred to Detention Block 1 in Fashafuyeh Prison. A source previously told the campaign that in none of the blocks of Tehran’s Great Prison is the principle of separating crimes enforced according to the Prison Organization’s regulations, and ideological and political prisoners are held alongside dangerous prisoners and those convicted of drug and murder offenses. In this prison where Dervishes were held, prisoners from the December 2017 and August 2018 protests were held scattered in various blocks.
Alireza Shirmohammadi was sentenced to eight years in prison on charges of “insulting sacred figures,” “insulting the supreme leader,” and “propaganda activities against the system” through activities in cyberspace. His appeals court was supposed to be held on July 8 in Branch 36 of the Court of Appeals, but he was killed before that.
Shortly after Shirmohammadi’s death, Abdolkarim Hosseinzadeh, head of the Civic Rights Faction in Parliament, in a letter to the Head of the Judiciary considered the death of several prisoners over the past years to be “a sign of a serious problem” in detention centers and prisons. However, Hosseinzadeh made no mention of what serious problem these deaths were caused by.
Hosseinzadeh, in part of this letter addressed to the Head of the Judiciary, had requested that regarding the killing of Alireza Shirmohammadi in Tehran’s Great Prison andreports that followed about the conditions of prisoner detention in this prison and some other prisons, an order be issued for follow-up.
Mahnaz Sarabi, Alireza Shirmohammadi’s mother, in a letter to the Head of the Judiciary asked him “Why did the prison head neglect his duties in the matter of my son’s death? When my son was losing blood for seven minutes, where was the guard officer and why didn’t he come with a special guard? Why should my 21-year-old young man be slaughtered like this?“
Shirmohammadi’s mother in an interview with the Jamaran website, in response to the question of where the follow-up by institutions such as the Judiciary Commission and the Parliament has led, said she doesn’t know “because I’m taking sleeping pills for all of it. They’re not keeping me informed of the process of Alireza’s case.“
31 days after Shirmohammadi’s killing, however, the only response from the Head of the Judiciary is the replacement of the head of Tehran Prisons Organization, yet his replacement is also someone under whose previous leadership in at least one of the prisons “Adel Abad Prison in Shiraz“ and according to some former prisoners of that prison, separation of crimes does not occur and dangerous prisoners are held alongside political prisoners.
Nevertheless, Gholamhossein Esmaili, spokesman of the judiciary, on July 10th, one day before the dismissal of the head of Tehran Prisons Organization due to Shirmohammadi’s death, claimed that Iran has no political prisoners. In his press conference, in response to the question of why some political prisoners are held with other prisoners, he said: “We have no political prisoners, and these are people who have committed crimes against security. The judiciary’s concern is to separate prisoners based on the type of crime, and an acceptable percentage has been achieved and occurred, and in prisons, especially in Tehran, people with different types of crimes have been separated in different sections.”
The judiciary spokesman made this claim while many political prisoners are currently living in Evin, Qarchak Varamin, Fashafuyeh and prisons in provincial cities. And according to them, in none of these prisons is the separation of crimes enforced.
Source: Human Rights Campaign
