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Branch 38 of the Iranian Supreme Court for a third time upheld the death sentences against seven Sunni political prisoners on September 10.

The Sunni inmates, Farhad Salimi, Qassem Absteh, Davood Abdollahi, Ayub Karimi, Anwar Khezri, Khosrow Besharat, and Kamran Sheikha, have been detained in Urmia, Evin, and Rajai Shahr prisons for 11 years. They had previously been sentenced to death in Branches 41 and 42 of the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court accepted the appeal by the prisoners’ families and referred the case to Branch 38 for retrial.

The seven Sunni political prisoners were arrested in 2009 based on bogus charges filed by the Ministry of Intelligence. They were charged with “acting against national security,” “propaganda against the state,” “membership in Salafi groups,” “corruption on earth,” and “Moharebeh (waging war on God).”

Over 98,300 people have died of the novel coronavirus in 410 cities checkered across all of Iran’s 31 provinces, according to reports tallied by the Iranian opposition People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) as of Wednesday afternoon local time, September 2.

The official death count declared by the regime stands at 21,797, around a fifth of the actual figure.

The coronavirus death toll in various provinces includes 23,865 in Tehran, 6969 in Razavi Khorasan, 4585 in Qom, 4425 in Isfahan, 4300 in Lorestan, 2808 in Golestan, 2803 in Alborz, 2752 in Fars, 2006 in Kurdistan, 1554 in North Khorasan, 1314 in Hormozgan, 1213 in Bushehr, 849 in Qazvin, and 635 in Kohgiluyeh & Boyer Ahmed. This is in addition to reports obtained from other provinces.

The NCRI Women’s Committee calls for the unconditional release of Nasrin Sotoudeh

Twenty days past the hunger strike by human rights lawyer and political prisoner Nasrin Sotoudeh, she is in critical health conditions in Evin Prison. She has been on hunger strike since August 11, 2020, in protest to the dire sanitary conditions in prison during the pandemic, demanding freedom of all political prisoners.

Considering the critical health conditions of Nasrin Sotoudeh, the Women’s Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) once again called for her unconditional release. Earlier, Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the NCRI President-elect, had called for the dispatch of an international fact-finding mission to visit Iran prisons and prisoners, particularly the political prisoners and imprisoned women.

The families and mothers of the victims of the 1988 massacre gathered Friday morning, August 28, 2020, in Khavaran Cemetery southeast of Tehran, to commemorate their loved ones most of whom were forcibly disappeared by the clerical regime in summer 1988.

They laid flowers on the spots which are said to be the mass graves of the victims, recited poems and sang anthems. After an hour, the State Security Force dispersed them out of the cemetery.

The families and mothers of the victims of the 1988 massacre have to overcome many obstacles to visit the symbolic graves of their children in various cemeteries across the country because the clerical regime has been concealing the evidence of this horrendous crime against humanity for years.

Years after sending political prisoner Arzhang Davoudi to exile in the prisons of Zabol and Zahedan, in Sistan and Baluchestan Province (SE Iran), the Intelligence Ministry is trying through various means to remove or conceal every trace of him, so that no one can disseminate any information about this long-time political prisoner.

In the latest news obtained on August 26, 2020, after much inquiry, it has been found that political prisoner Arjang Davoudi is detained in a quarantined solitary cell in the Central Prison of Zahedan, isolated away from other inmates. He is being held incommunicado and has no contact even with any of the other prisoners.

Arzhang Davoudi is presently detained in the Central Prison of Zahedan.

Political prisoner Fatemeh Mosanna was taken to Taleghani Hospital in Tehran on Wednesday, August 19, 2020, after going unconscious in the women’s ward of Evin Prison.

Her hands and feet are cuffed to the hospital bed since that day. She is denied from being visited by her children and relatives.

Political prisoner Fatemeh Mosanna earlier had symptoms of fever and chills.

Ms. Mosanna’s children referred to the Taleghani Hospital to see their mother, but they have not yet managed to visit her.

They have been told that their mother is tied to her bed, on the orders of Amin Vaziri, the special prosecutor for political prisoners.

Despite other claims, Iranian authorities knew about the mass execution of political prisoners in 1988, a document recently retrieved from the archives of Amnesty International shows. The document, which was tweeted by the Farsi account of Amnesty first, is an Urgent Appeal that dates back to August 16, 1988, when the executions were at their height.

“Amnesty International is concerned by evidence that a new wave of political executions is taking place in Iran,” the document reads.

The document contains accounts of the execution of members of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) and other groups that oppose the Iranian regime. “Approvals by the Supreme Judicial Council of death sentences of members of opposition groups also continue to be reported,” the document reads in part.
Amnesty International had, at the time, also expressed concern about “lack of provisions for a fair trial in political cases” and “lack of any procedure for prisoners sentenced to death to appeal against conviction or sentence.”

Infected labour activist Jafar Azimzadeh has started a hunger strike since Sunday, August 16, after being transferred from Evin Prison to Gohardasht Prison (Rajai Shahr) in Karaj instead of a hospital.

Mr. Azimzadeh contracted the coronavirus while in Evin Prison. After a clinic doctor diagnosed that he was an emergency case, prison authorities transferred him out of Evin but instead of taking him to a civic hospital, took him to Gohardasht Prison.

The infected labour activist was held in solitary confinement for two days without being allowed to contact his family.

The reason Mr. Azimzadeh went on hunger strike was to protest the authorities’ “deceiving him and taking him to Rajai Shahr Prison instead of a hospital,” “failure to observe hygiene protocols to fight the coronavirus in prison and disseminating false reports from 20:30 TV news program pretending that there is no coronavirus in prison”, and “keeping his family in the dark, torturing them psychologically and letting them wander around in Tehran’s hospitals.”

Seventy-two political prisoners who have been detained for partaking in the November 2019 protests are participating in a hunger strike over coronavirus fears at the Greater Tehran Penitentiary.

The prisoners announced in a letter today that they started a hunger strike to protest against being denied leave during the Coronavirus pandemic and poor prison conditions.

The strikers refused meals today and said that they will continue their protest until their demands are met.

The political prisoners said in their letter, “We started to strike today to protest the violations of the political prisoners’ rights and the authorities’ insistency on imprisoning justice-seeking people in these deplorable health conditions and in this remote prison, which lacks the necessary standards for human care.