Zeinab Bayazidi, a former prisoner of conscience, was released on
November 20, 2012, after serving 4.5 years inside the Maragheh
Prison. Over the past few days, Bayazidi has received threatening
phone calls from individuals with blocked telephone numbers and has
been visibly followed by several suspicious vehicles. Pictured:
Zeinab Bayazidi and her mother after her release.
Over the past several months, Orumiyeh and Mahabad Intelligence Offices have
summoned, detained, and harassed several Kurdish former political prisoners on
the pretext of concern over their continued political activities after their
release from prison, a local source told the International Campaign for Human
Rights in Iran. In most reported cases, security forces have gone to the homes
of former political prisoners on several occasions. The forces have searched the
homes for several hours without providing any explanation for these actions,
detaining the individuals and releasing them later.
According to the source, since the fall of 2010, Revolutionary Guards'
Intelligence Unit forces have thrice detained Shirzad Beigzadeh, a resident of
Hoosan village outside the city of Orumiyeh. Each time, they held the former
political prisoner who served a year in prison for 24 hours, and also searched
his house. Over the past month, the Orumiyeh Intelligence Office has also
summoned Beigzadeh to their Information Unit. The former prisoner of conscience
was arrested on May 12, 2005, and spent six months inside the Orumiyeh
Intelligence Office Detention Center under interrogation and physical and
psychological torture, and suffered a broken rib. He was later temporarily
released on bail. In 2006, Branch One of Orumiyeh Revolutionary Court sentenced
him to four years in prison on charges of cooperating with a Kurdish political
party. After his appeal, the Supreme Court reduced his sentence to one year in
prison and three years' suspended prison time.
The source, a human rights activist, told the Campaign that Zeinab Bayazidi, a
former prisoner of conscience released on November 20, 2012, after serving 4.5
years at Maragheh Prison, has received threatening phone calls from individuals
with blocked telephone numbers and has been visibly followed by several
suspicious vehicles. During these phone calls, the anonymous callers have told
Bayazidi that they are aware of "her secret activities after her release from
prison," and that they "wouldn't allow her to continue her activities so
easily." Following the arrests of several Kurdish political and civil activists
in Mahabad, pressure and threats have mounted. Previously in 2005, a female
Kurdish activist from Mahabad, Serwah Kamkar, was arrested violently at a city
square in public by forces from the Mahabad Intelligence Office; she was
released several hours later with bruises on her body.
The human rights activist told the Campaign that due to the high sensitivity and
the Iranian regime's security approach to all issues, the Intelligence Office
and the Revolutionary Guards' Intelligence Unit in Kurdish regions of Iran
routinely put pressure on former political prisoners and their families through
summonses, threats, and prosecution of the individuals, in order to create an
atmosphere of fear, aiming to dissuade them from continuing their political
activities.
