Zahra Safayi and Parasto Moieni’s Protest Action at Qarchak Varamin Prison
Zahra Safayi and her son Parasto Moieni, political prisoners at Qarchak Varamin Prison, launched a sit-in on Tuesday, July 12, 2022, demanding a meeting with Mohammad Masoud Moieni, another imprisoned member of their family. This family’s deprivation of visitation rights occurs despite legal provisions that allow meetings between imprisoned family members, even if they are held in separate prisons.
According to Hrana news agency, the media outlet of the Human Rights Activists in Iran organization, on Tuesday, July 12, 2022, Zahra Safayi and her son Parasto Moieni, political prisoners held at Qarchak Varamin Prison, launched a sit-in.
The protest action by these two prisoners was in demand of a meeting with Mohammad Masoud Moieni, their son and brother who is imprisoned. The family’s deprivation of visitation rights occurs despite legal provisions that allow meetings between imprisoned family members, even if they are held in separate prisons.
An informed source told Hrana: “For three months, Zahra Safayi and Parasto Moieni have been requesting a meeting with Mohammad Masoud. Their request for a visit faced negligence and opposition from officials until yesterday, when they announced that such a meeting was possible. For this reason, today they sat in the prison corridor until 1:30 PM.”
The source added: “Ms. Safayi, who suffers from heart problems, returned to her ward to take her medications, and the guards locked the ward door behind them. After Ms. Safayi and others protested, they only responded with insults. Finally, after an hour of prisoners’ protest, they opened the door, and Zahra Safayi joined her daughter to continue the sit-in. Several other political prisoners also accompanied them in this sit-in.”
Ms. Safayi was sent to the hospital several times last September due to heart disease and underwent an angiography procedure. Zahra Safayi was prevented from being transferred to the hospital on April 13 of this year despite a previously scheduled appointment, because she objected to being transferred in handcuffs and shackles.
Zahra Safayi and her daughter Parasto Moieni were arrested on February 23, 2020, by security forces in Tehran and transferred to the detention facility of the Ministry of Intelligence, known as Ward 209 of Evin Prison. Ms. Safayi, along with her daughter, was exiled from Evin Prison to Qarchak Varamin Prison in late April 2020 after interrogations ended. She was previously released on July 8, 2020, with a bail deposit of 300 million tomans temporarily until the end of legal proceedings from Qarchak Varamin Prison, and on August 5, after appearing in Evin Prosecutor’s Office, she faced a tenfold increase in bail amount (three billion tomans) and consequently was arrested and transferred to Qarchak Varamin Prison on Monday, August 6.
Parasto Moieni, Zahra Safayi, and Mohammad Masoud Moieni were finally sentenced in November 2020 by Branch 23 of the Tehran Revolutionary Court, chaired by Judge Mohammad Mehdi Shammirza, to each serve 5 years in prison on charges of assembly and conspiracy with intent to act against national security, and to one year in prison on charges of anti-government propaganda activities. Zahra Safayi was additionally sentenced to two years in prison on charges of insulting the Supreme Leader and the founder of the Islamic Republic.
Parasto Moieni and Zahra Safayi also faced case reopenings during their sentences.
Zahra Safayi has previously been arrested and imprisoned. She was arrested in 2006 and released after some time. She also spent time in prison in the 1980s as a political activist. Ms. Safayi’s father, known as “Haji Safayi,” was a prominent Tehran bazaar merchant who was executed in 1981 on charges of supporting the People’s Mujahedin Organization.
Source: Hrana
