Despite Her Deteriorating Health, Sanaz Allahyari Not Hospitalized, but Kept in Prison, Instead

Journalist Sanaz Allahyari, a member of the editorial board of a magazine called GAM

Journalist Sanaz Allahyari, a member of the editorial board of a magazine called GAM

by Navid  Felker

A member of the editorial board of a magazine called GAM, Sanaz Allahyari, has been held in detention for the past five months. She became ill and her illness has not been diagnosed, nor have the medications prescribed for her helped her situation. She has become extremely weak, her limbs shake, she suffers from GI problems. Sanaz Allahyari has lost 10 kilograms.

Despite efforts of her family, prison officials have been preventing her transfer to hospital to receive the medical treatment she so desperately needs.

Last Month, Allahyari was taken to the prison’s dispensary, where medications were prescribed for her. Her condition only worsened — the shaking and weakness of her body and limbs intensified.

Her family recently wrote a letter and went to the Majlis to appeal their daughter’s situation, but security forces did not let them inside the building. They also refused to take the letter inside.

19 year old women’s rights activist and former political prisoner, Saba Kord Afshari, was rearrested on Saturday, June 1, 2019. Prior to that, she was arrested during the protests in August 2018, and sentenced to one-year in prison.

She spent a day in detention in the First Inspection Branch of the Public Court in Tehran’s District 21, and then she was sentenced to one month in prison, on charges including promotion of “corruption and prostitution through removing the veil and walking without the veil, anti-regime propaganda, having contacts with groups opposing and planning for the soft overthrow of the regime, as well as collusion and association against the state.”

Afshari was held in solitary confinement for ten days in Vozara Detention Center. Then, on June 11th, she was transferred to the Quarantine Ward of Qarchak Prison.

According to the state run Mehr News Agency, Rasoul Sanaii Rad, political deputy in Khamenei’s politico-ideological bureau, admitted that about 28 per cent of those arrested in the uprisings in August were women.

The Iranian Judiciary issued prison sentences from 6 months to 12 months for five young women for participating in protests last August, reports from Iran say. On August 8th, Amnesty International called for the immediate and unconditional release of all detainees, as well as an “impartial and independent” investigation into the suspicious death of Reza Otadi, 26, who was killed during the same protests in Karaj.