On Tuesday, April 12, 2022, despite prior agreement and a set appointment, prison officials denied dispatching the political prisoner Zahra Safai to a hospital. The denial was under the pretext of her disagreement with transfer with handcuff and foot cuffs. According to the State Prisons and Security and Corrective Measures Organization’s rules, transferring the prisoners with foot cuffs except for prisoners of violent crimes is forbidden.
According to HRANA, the news agency of Human Rights Activists, through the obstruction of prison officials, political prisoner Zahra Safai was denied medical treatment.
Mrs Safai suffers from heart disease and has had angiography surgery in the past. Since September of last year, she has been dispatched several times to a hospital outside the prison. This time, the prison officials denied her access to urgent medical care.
On February 24, 2020, security forces arrested Zahra Safai and her daughter Parastoo Moeini in Tehran and transferred them to Ward 209 of Evin Prison. In April 2020, they were sent in exile to Qarchak Prison in Varamin City. On June 28, 2020, Mrs Safai was released on bail with the amount of 300 million tomans. However, on July 26 of that year, they increased the bail ten times and subsequently arrested and sent her back to Qarchak Prison when she could not provide the set bail.
In February of 2021, Branch 23 of the Revolutionary Court of Tehran sentenced Mrs Safai to 5 years in prison on the charge of “assembly and collusion to act against national security”, one year on the charge of “propaganda against the regime” and two years on the charge of “offensive statements against the former and current Supreme Leader of Iran”. As an additional punishment, she was banned from leaving the country and membership in any political parties or civil groups.
Zahra Safai has also faced arrest and conviction in 2006. Further, during the 1980’s she had been imprisoned for a while. Her father, Haji Safai was a well-known businessman who was executed on the charge of “advocacy for the People’s Mujahedin Organization of Iran (the Mujahedin-e-Khalq or MEK)”.
