The conditions of imprisoned student activist Soha Mortezaii has been reported dire.
Soha Mortezaii has a heart condition and has been under tremendous pressure since she was arrested on November 17, 2019, outside Tehran University’s dormitory.
The intelligence Department of Tehran University had previously threatened Ms. Mortezaii and her family that if she did not stop her sit-in they would transfer her to a mental hospital where she would be given electric shocks to bring her back to her senses.
Soha Mortezaii was in Tehran University’s Fatemiyeh Dormitory on Sunday, November 17, 2019, when she received a text message to go to the front gate. There, she was brutalized and abducted along with two other students and taken away.
Ms. Mortezaii has been deprived of contacting her family since she was arrested in the early days of the nationwide uprising. She has been under tremendous pressure during interrogations.
She was arrested during the December 2017-January 2018 uprising and later sentenced to six years in prison.
Soha Mortezaii has a masters of political sciences. She won admission to the doctorate level as the 10th ranking student, but the Intelligence Ministry and the university’s intelligence department prevented her from continuing her education, something that provoked her to hold a solo sit-in outside Tehran University’s library for 21 days.
Having failed to stop Soha from holding her strike, Tehran University’s intelligence department summoned her family to the university and told them to sign a paper indicating their consent to transfer Soha Mortezaii to a mental hospital where she could receive “electric shock treatment” to come to her senses, otherwise they would add 2.5 years to her 6-year prison term.
The Mortezaii family did not sign any papers.
