Iran: complaint leads to treatment denial for female political prisoner

By Pejman Amiri -  Political prisoner Mrs. Maryam Akbari Monfared has recently been deprived of access to medical care by Iranian authorities. She is currently held in Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison under a 15-year sentence term. Monfared is coping with retaliatory measures following a recently filed formal complaint. Considered controversial in Iran, Monfared is seeking an official probe into the 1988 massacre of thousands of political prisoners. Those victims include her own siblings.

Iranian authorities are depriving this prisoner of conscience any opportunity to meet preplanned medical appointments outside of prison. Monfared is in need of dire medical attention, suffering from rheumatoid arthritis and complains of thyroid pain. On October 24th Evin Prison Associate Prosecutor informed the Monfared family her medical arrangements had been cancelled. Authorities are claiming Monfared had become too “brazen” in prison, leading to such punitive measures.

Iranian regime officials are furious over the formal complaint filed by Monfared on October 18th from inside prison. She is seeking an official probe into the 1988 massacre of over 30,000 political prisoners in regime jails across the country. These victims include her brother and sister. Monfared has been subject to different forms of reprisals. The Prosecutor Office banned her from any family visits and threatened to raise new criminal charges.

Monfared was detained and placed behind bars during the heated unrest of December 2009. For a period of five months her family was kept completely in the dark and uninformed of her whereabouts. She was summoned to a so-called revolutionary court in Tehran to be sentenced to 15 years behind bars. Several charges were raised, including “enmity against God” through her membership in the People’s Mojahedin Organizaiton of Iran (PMOI). This entity, the main Iranian opposition group, is based in Paris and banned in Iran by the ruling regime.

Monfared faced highly unfair proceedings not meeting any rule of law standards. Her conviction was issued on the mere fact of making phone calls to her PMOI member siblings. Charges also cited a visit she made once to Camp Ashraf, a former PMOI base in Iraq. She had been confined to incommunicado for the first 43 days of her containment. Intense interrogations and denial of access to legal representation were a few of the ordeals Monfared endured. She first met a regime-appointed lawyer at a single, brief court hearing. A reasoned decision was far from what Monfared received in court, with no decent evidence or legal reasoning. She was convicted to a heavy sentences despite these serious shortcomings.

Monfared’s husband has said the so-called trial judge had made it crystal clear why she was being punished. 
“She was paying for the activities of her brother and sister with the PMOI,” Monfared’s husband explained. All appeals filed by Monfared were flatly dismissed in a completely summary approach without providing any justifiable reasoning.