Human Rights and Democracy Activists Website, 21 Sep 2012 – Based on reports obtained by the “Human Rights and Democracy Activists in Iran”, the discontinuation of retirement pensions for jailed teacher Mohammad Amin Agooshi has placed his family in very harsh living conditions.
Zaman Agooshi, 24, married with a new born baby, is the son of this jailed teacher. According to these reports he was forced to sell one of his kidneys to provide for the expenses for the family to travel and meet his father in prison in the city of Zahedan, southwestern Iran. Zaman sold his left kidney at the Khomeini Hospital in the city of Piranshahr.
The Agooshi family travelled a very long distance to the city of Zahedan and endured extremely high expenses. Reaching the prison, they requested to meet the jailed teacher, waiting for a relatively long time and forced to go through insulting inspections. After all this they were told they can meet the jailed teacher for only 30 minutes. The Agooshi family protested to the very short period they were being allowed to meet with their loved one, and explained to the prison officials the high expenses and long distance they travelled to Zahedan. However, the regime’s prison officials were not willing to increase the time of the visit.
On the other hand, the jailed teacher Mohammad Amin Agooshi is suffering from chronic physical illnesses such as neurotic distress resulting from the first period of his detention behind bars. Furthermore, his other illnesses include blisters on the tongue and in the mouth. However, Ministry of Intelligence interrogators are depriving him of medical treatment in order to place even more pressure on this prisoner.
Zahedan Prison lacks even a general physician, and a doctor comes to the prison only once in every two weeks. This doctor doesn’t have adequate experience and only prescribes pain reliever pills to the prisoners. To this day no medical specialist has been brought to this prison. This facility is truly similar to the prisons of the Middle Ages and lacks even fundamental facilities. The number of inmates is many times above the cells’ capacity. Hygiene conditions are atrocious and a number of inmates have lost their lives to very simple and curable diseases due to the lack of basic medical supplies. Death rates in this prison are very high.
On the other hand, various types of drugs and narcotics can be found in this prison in very high quantities. The entry of drugs and narcotics into the prison takes place by the prison officials, who gain enormous profits from its sale inside the prison.
Human Rights and Democracy Activists in Iran condemns the discontinuation of retirement pensions to jailed teacher Mohammad Amin Agooshi and measures taken to place he and his family in very hard living conditions to a point that his son was forced to sell his left kidney to provide for the expenses of traveling to this prison for a family meeting. These activists also condemn lack of medical care for this jailed teacher, calling on the UN Secretary-General and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to refer Khamenei’s dossier to international judicial institutes in order to look into this crime against humanity.
On October 1st, 2012, Human Rights and Democracy Activists in Iran sent the above report to the following organizations:
UN High Commission for Human Rights
EU Commission for Human Rights
Amnesty International
The usage of Human Rights and Democracy Activists reports in Iran is only permitted by stating the source.