Human rights activist Narges Mohammadi and six other women in the Prison of Zanjan have developed dangerous symptoms of the Covid-19 disease while being denied access to tests and treatment.
Narges Mohammadi’s condition has raised concerns. Ms. Mohammadi and six other prisoners have developed numbness, weakness, bone pain and have totally lost their sense of smell for more than a week.
Human rights activist Narges Mohammadi was sent to exile in the Prison of Zanjan among common prisoners for holding a protest sit-in along with seven other political prisoners in the women’s ward of Evin Prison in solidarity with families of the victims killed in the November 2019 uprising.
Fifteen inmates in the women’s ward of Zanjan Prison are suspected of being infected. Health conditions of Narges Mohammadi and six other women are worse than others. They are also deprived of going on medical leave.
Narges Mohammadi has been deprived of her basic rights as a prisoner, including her right to call her children, since being relocated to Zanjan Prison 10 months ago.
In a letter from Zanjan Prison, Narges Mohammadi recently announced that she had been physically attacked and insulted by the person of Gholamreza Ziaii, the warden of Evin Prison. She wrote in the letter: “Mr. Ziaii and more than 20 other men and women surrounded me, and started shoving me around. They took my arms and hand and pushed me inside an ambulance. Mr. Ziaii put his arms around me, picked me up and shoved me head on inside the ambulance.”
Gholamreza Ziaii previously headed Gohardasht Prison in Karaj, also known as Rajaishahr. In July 2019, he was appointed as warden of Evin Prison on the order of the General Director of the Prisons Organization of Tehran Province.
Ziaii has had a key role in ramping up pressure on Evin prisoners and imposing new illegal restrictions on them.
He also headed the notorious Kahrizak Detention Center during the 2009 uprising in Iran, where several of the detained protesters were murdered.