Two Psychologically Ill Sunni Prisoners Awaiting Execution Transferred to Rajai Shahr Prison
10-January-2015
Category: religious minorities
Breathing in Confinement – Syed Hadi Hosseini and Seddigh Mohammadi, two Sunni prisoners with psychological illnesses on death-row in Iran, were transferred to Rajai Shahr prison earlier today.
According to the report of “Breathing in Confinement”, the two men, who had been sentenced to death for ‘Moharabeh [enmity against God] through supporting Salafi groups’, had been held in appalling conditions in the notorious Ghezel Hesar prison near Tehran for the past two years.
The men had been under increasing pressure from prison guards, with officials restricting their food rations in January 2014 and Seddigh Mohammad being forced to spend 40 days in solitary confinement between August and September 2014.
Prison guards had also brutally beaten Seddigh Mohammadi on 12 August 2014, after he complained about guards who had insulted his Sunni religious beliefs, leaving him with a wound to his head and severe bruising to his body.
His family also said that during a meeting with Seddigh in October 2014, they saw evidence that he had been beaten, after noticing that he had bruising to his legs and that one of his teeth had been broken.
Seddigh Mohammadi and Hadi Hosseini both suffer from psychological disorders, and are required to take various medication on a daily basis to control their symptoms.
Hadi Hosseini had been a ‘red card patient’, indicating severe psychological illness, at the Farabi Hospital in Kermanshah.
The men had reportedly been due to be executed in September 2013, before their death sentences were overturned by the Supreme Court due to their psychological illnesses.
The move came after the men ended a 7-week long hunger strike, with officials promising to provide a retrial in the Revolutionary Court in Sanandaj.
However, the men did not receive retrials as promised, and in May 2014 the Supreme Court confirmed their death sentences once again. Their cases were sent to the Office for the Implementation of Sentences, and the men are at risk of execution.