Samnak Aghai

As the start of the new Iranian calendar year on March 20th 2008 approached, many ‎Kurdish student and women activists including political and ideological prisoners in the ‎Islamic Republic of Iran worked hard to convince the judiciary to release Kurdish ‎political prisoners on bail, news reports indicate that relevant courts are not only ‎disinterested in doing this, but are even against granting short term leaves to prisoners for ‎the New Year holidays, which is a customary event among the country’s prisoners.‎

These reports circulated at a time when the trial of Ronak Safarzadeh officially began last ‎week in the Kurdish town of Sanandaj, in the presence of her attorneys. But despite the ‎repeated petitions by the defense attorney and the prisoners’ deteriorating health ‎conditions to release the prisoner on bail, or granting a medial leave to the prisoner, the ‎court session ended without any conclusion or decision.‎

The Internet news site “Rojelat” reported in this regard that “the defense attorney ‎announced at the trial session that the confessions that had been extracted from his client ‎were all under duress and therefore inadmissible in a court of law.”‎

The report also wrote that the family of the prisoner, and particularly her old mother, who ‎were in very poor health, were extremely concerned about the difficult and uncertain ‎conditions that their daughter was in, adding that they themselves were under pressure ‎from Sanandaj security and intelligence circles. The report quotes Ronak Safarzadeh’s ‎mother saying, “my daughter is seriously ill, while her mental and spiritual health are ‎very concerning.”‎

So similar to the situation under which Hana Abdi and Yaser Goli are currently subjected ‎to, Ronak Safarzadeh too is under the worst mental and physical conditions while the ‎status of her case is in complete limbo. Efforts to change this situation have all been futile ‎till now. I the words of Mohammad Sharif, the defense attorney for Hana Abdi and ‎Ronak Safarzadeh, the charges against Abdi are still in their discovery phase and have ‎not even been submitted to the court. Attorney Sharif further said in this regard, “The ‎court is absolutely not ready to change Abdi’s arrest so she can be released on bail.”‎

In a related news development over prisoner Yaser Goli, while this student activist was ‎returned behind bars for over 4 months ago for the second time, her dossier is not yet ‎final and the Sanandaj court has not put the case on its docket. Reports have indicated her ‎deteriorating health conditions, with some stating that she is suffering from tuberculosis.‎

The Rojelat website reports this on the health conditions of Yaser Goli: “She continues to ‎be detained for over five months now, while still no date has been announced for her trial. ‎She is suffering from a strange illness that prison doctors believe may be tuberculosis. ‎The doctors have requested that she be treated in a better equipped hospital.” ‎

The reports also references that the mother of this student prisoner who has been behind ‎bars for more than forty days now and writes, “During her detentions she has not been ‎allowed to meet with her attorney and in an illegal act, the officials of the Sanandaj ‎prison have denied her any visitations rights or the right to use the prison library. Yaser ‎Goli’s mother, Fatemeh Goftari (a member of the Women for Peace) was herself ‎imprisoned for 40 days for following up with her daughter’s detention. She was recently ‎released from prison and has not seen her daughter for over five months now.‎