(12 December 2011) On the evening of Monday, December 5, 2011, prison guards attacked Ward 12, the ward that houses political prisoners, of the central prison in Orumieh, Iran. The guards transferred six Kurdish political prisoners in the ward: Habibollah Golparipour, Jahangir Baduzadeh, Ahmad Tamou’i, Yousef Kakmami, Ali Ahmad Soleiman, and Mostafa Ali Ahmad to solitary confinement in the prison.
The prison authorities have not yet given the reason for the transfer. Since their transfer to solitary confinement, the prisoners in question have been denied the right to telephone calls and prison visits. As of Monday, December 12, 2011, no further information about these prisoners is available.
Following the protests of political prisoners against the execution of Kurdish political prisoner Hossein Khezri earlier this year, prison agents transferred many Kurdish political prisoners to solitary confinement and the detention center of the intelligence office, including: Ahmad Tamou’i, Ali Ahmad Soleiman, Habibollah Golparipour, Mohammad Amin Abdollahi, and Hossein Mirzaei. Also Jahangir Baduzadeh, sentenced to life imprisonment, was condemned to six months of solitary confinement by the court for violating the regulations of the prison.
Habibollah Golparipour, one of the Orumieh prisoners transferred to solitary confinement and a Kurdish political prisoner on death row, was arrested in Mahabad, Iran by the intelligence protection agents of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on 26 September 2009. After five months of physical and mental torture in IRGC detention centers in Mahabad and the town of Almahdi in Orumieh, as well as the information campaign of the intelligence office of Sanandaj and Orumieh, he was sentenced to death for cooperation with PJAK by the first branch of the Revolutionary Court of Mahabad. His sentence was later confirmed by the Supreme Court.
The charges and sentences against the other prisoners transferred to solitary confinement are as follows: Ahmad Tamou’i is sentenced to 15 years of imprisonment for cooperation with PJAK, Mostafa Ali Ahmad from Syria is sentenced to 10 years of imprisonment for “attempts against national security”, Yousef Kakehmami from Mahabad is sentenced to 9 years of imprisonment and exile to the central prison of Orumieh for “attempts against national security” and Ali Ahmad Soleiman from Iraq is sentenced to 5 years of “Tazir” imprisonment (for crimes that do not have a specific codified duration of imprisonment in law) for “attempts against national security”.