Political prisoner Nejat Anvar Hamidi has been infected with the coronavirus in Sepidar Prison in Ahvaz, Khuzestan Province. Meanwhile, reports indicate that at least 50 women political prisoners in Sepidar Prison have also contracted the coronavirus.
Instead of allowing her to receive medical treatment, authorities are holding Nejat Anvar Hamidi in quarantine in a ward that lacks access to medical care. According to a source close to the prisoner, Ms. Hamidi and other prisoners were informed that the prison doctor was ill and would not come to the prison. Ms. Hamidi needs antibiotics but has only been given antipyretic (fever-reducing) medication.
Prison authorities have refused to honor family requests to deliver to prisoners their prescribed medications.
This political prisoner’s life is in danger due to her advanced age and her illnesses. In addition to suffering from severe eye disease, Nejat Anvar Hamidi continues to experience chronic headaches, a condition she developed during her prison sentence in the 1980s.
She was arrested in 1981 for supporting the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) and held in the regime’s prisons for more than 2 years.
Political prisoner Nejat Anvar Hamidi was arrested again in 2017 and released on bail; however, the regime issued a warrant for her arrest, and she was re-arrested in March 2019. Her new sentence was for 5 years. She was then transferred to Sepidar Prison in Ahvaz to serve her sentence.
Nejat Anvar Hamidi’s husband and daughter were also arrested at the same time, interrogated, and threatened. The authorities informed the family members that they had no right to legal counsel.
They were also told that if they sought counsel anyway, they would be arrested on charges of failing to cooperate with intelligence forces and representing a threat to national security.
The situation has been critical in Sepidar Prison of Ahvaz since the coronavirus outbreak. A riot erupted in this prison last March. Security guards viciously suppressed the rioters, killing a number of prisoners in the process.
