Kurdish prisoner Zeinab Jalalian has been infected with the coronavirus
Reports indicate that Zeinab Jalalian, the only female political prisoner sentenced to life imprisonment, has been infected with the coronavirus in Qarchak Prison.
Ali Jalalian, the father of Zeinab Jalalian, a Kurdish political prisoner in Iran, announced this news to the Kurdistan Human Rights Network, telling her that Zeinab Jalalian was transferred to the prison's health center on June 4 due to severe shortness of breath, and after examination and testing by a doctor, her illness was diagnosed as COVID-19.
The political prisoner's father stated that despite being diagnosed with the disease, "prison officials, on orders from the Ministry of Intelligence, are refusing to transfer him to the hospital."
According to the report, Zeinab Jalalian said in her last phone call to her family yesterday that she is being held in a separate room in the quarantine section of the prison along with several other prisoners infected with the coronavirus and that she still has a high fever and shortness of breath. The prison's medical doctor also told her that the virus has affected her lungs and that they are trying to control the lung infection through medication.
Zeinab Jalalian's father, expressing concern about his daughter's health, has called for her immediate transfer to a hospital outside the prison.
Zeinab Jalalian, who is serving her eleventh year in Khoy Prison, is from Maku County and was arrested in March 2007 in Kermanshah.
The Iranian judiciary initially sentenced him to death and then to life imprisonment on charges of war and membership in a Kurdish party.
Source: Voice of America
