Kurdish political prisoner transferred to solitary confinement in Iran

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Ghader Mohammadzadeh, a Kurdish political prisoner, has been transferred to solitary confinement of a central prison in Urmiye, the Human Rights Activists News Agency reports.

The reason for the transfer is unknown. According to the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center (IHRDC), this is not the first time Mohammadzadeh has been brought into  solitary confinement. On April 1, 2012, he was then also transferred to the central prison in Urmiye.

Mohammedzadeh was charged with acting against national security and “enmity against God” due to alleged membership of Komala, a Kurdish political party. He was initially sentenced to death but the verdict was appealed and has been reduced to 20 years in prison.

Mohammadzadeh is a Kurdish citizen from Bukan where he was arrested by security forces in the fall of 2005, IHRDC writes.

A year after the arrest, Mohammadzadeh was tried at the Revolutionary Court in the city of Mehabad. A source told IHRDC in 2012 that Mohammadzadeh’s lawyer was not allowed to review his case or to partake in proceedings.

Mohammedzadeh was arrested together with another Kurd by the name Mohammad Amin Abdollahi who was tried with the same charges as Mohammadzadeh. Abdollahi was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

In 2010, they were transferred to a location with the Intelligence Office in Urmiye and here, they were “psychologically pressured and threatened during a month of interrogation” simply because their case had been covered in international media. This led to new charges that alleged “connections with foreign media” which resulted in an addition of 6 months to their previous punishment.