US Congressman: Iran Should Heed UN Request for Zeinab Jalalian’s Release

A senior US congressman responded to the disproportionate conditions of Zeinab Jalalian, an Iranian prisoner, by posting a tweet.

Jamie Raskin, representative of Maryland’s 8th congressional district in the US House of Representatives, wrote in a tweet on Tuesday evening, September 27: “Zeinab Jalalian has been imprisoned in Iran for 13 years on fabricated charges for supporting the rights of Kurds and Iranian women. Now those who imprisoned her have denied her basic healthcare in an attempt to extract a confession from her.”

He added: “Iran must heed the United Nations’ call for her unconditional release.”

Amnesty International stated in April of this year, when publishing names and photos of a group of political prisoners in Iran, that Zeinab Jalalian has repeatedly been subjected to “torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, and her access to medical services has been made conditional on forced confessions.”

Zeinab Jalalian is from Makoo city. She was arrested in Kermanshah in March 2008. Iran’s judiciary initially sentenced her to death on charges of moharebeh (enmity against God) and membership in a Kurdish party, later changed to life imprisonment in appeals court.

Forced confessions accompanied by violence by Iranian security forces have been raised repeatedly in the past. The use of this confession extraction method, which has been repeatedly criticized by human rights organizations, continues to be practiced by the judiciary of the Islamic Republic.

Some of these forced confessions of detainees, such as those of Maziar Bahari, Maziar Ebrahimi, Sepideh Qolian, Ebrahim Bakhshi, Saeed Malekpour, and dozens of others, have been broadcast on Iranian state television networks. Human rights organizations say that the Islamic Republic does not fairly investigate charges and sometimes innocent people are tried and even executed.

The US State Department has repeatedly condemned violent treatment and widespread suppression of protesters in various cases, as well as the repeated and continuous violation of the rights of Iranian citizens by the Islamic Republic system.

Source: Voice of America