Amnesty International urges Iran to release Zeynab Jalalian and give her the urgent medical care she needs.

News Center- The health problems of Kurdish politician Zeynab Jalalian, who is enduring a life sentence in Iran have become the main topic of conversation many times. Amnesty International wrote a letter to Iranian Head of Judiciary Ebrahim Raisi drawing attention to the rights violations and health problems Jalalian suffers in an Iranian prison and urged the authorities to release her.

The letter says that Zeynab Jalalian has been intentionally denied transfer to outside facilities for medical treatment unavailable in prison for over six years. Only once in 2020, she was briefly provided health care outside of prison in June after testing positive for COVID-19. She has had no further adequate access to health care, including for a post COVID-19 respiratory condition which she said is so acute that it prevents her from sleeping, and for a serious eye condition.

The letter underlines that On 29 November 2020, Ali Jalalian, Zeynab Jalalian’s father, was arrested by the Ministry of intelligence officials and interrogated about speaking about his daughter with human rights organizations and media outside of Iran; he was released on bail a day later. Zeynab Jalalian is serving a life sentence in Yazd prison, 1,400 km away from her family home, following a grossly unfair trial in December 2008 that lasted a few minutes without her lawyer present. Following her arbitrary arrest, Zeynab Jalalian was held in prolonged solitary confinement for eight months without access to a lawyer, and has said that, during this period, intelligence officials tortured her including through flogging the soles of her feet, punching her in the stomach, hitting her head against a wall and threatening her with rape.

Amnesty International urges Iran to release Zeynab Jalalian and give her the urgent medical care she needs.