Political prisoner Saba Kord Afshari has been deprived of visits for two weeks, beginning on January 15, 2022. Presently, she is detained in the notorious Qarchak Prison in Varamin, southeast of Tehran.
An informed source reported that Saba Kord Afshari was having a cabin visit with her father on January 4, 2022, when her phone was cut off before they finished their meeting.
Saba Kord Afshari did not leave the visitation hall in protest and demanded to say goodbye to her father. However, prison guards headed by a man named Rashvandi pushed Mr. Kord Afshari out of the hall with disrespect and intimidated him.
Eventually, the deputy warden of Qarchak Prison, Mothani, threatened Saba to deprive her of visits.
Political prisoner Saba Kord Afshari has thus been deprived of visits for two weeks since January 15, 2022, based on a directive that she was not allowed to read. The order was issued without being examined by the Disciplinary Council.
This is not the first time Saba Kord Afshari is being subjected to pressure while serving her sentence in Qarchak.
Deprived of visits in Qarchak with a 24-year sentence
Saba Kord Afshari, 23, a spoken-out opponent of the mandatory Hijab, was arrested on June 1, 2019. The Revolutionary Court of Tehran handed down a 24-year sentence for Saba Kord Afshari on August 19, 2019.
The sentence included 15 years for “promoting corruption and prostitution,” 1.5 years on the charge of “propaganda against the state,” and 7.5 years for “association and collusion against national security.”
Saba Kord Afshari had earlier been arrested in August 2018 during street protests in Tehran. She was taken to Qarchak Prison and detained without standing trial. She was eventually sentenced to one year in prison for “disruption of public order” and transferred to the women’s ward of Evin Prison. Saba Kord Afshari was released in February 2019.
After being re-arrested in June 2019, Saba Kord Afshari was taken to Qarchak Prison in Varamin. On July 2, she was taken to Ward 2A in Evin Prison. The ward falls under the Intelligence Department of the Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Saba was pressured to make false televised confessions against her will. She was subsequently returned to Qarchak and eventually transferred to the women’s ward of Evin on August 13, 2019.
On December 9, 2020, she was banished to Qarchak Prison as part of a plan to disperse political prisoners from the women’s ward of Evin Prison.
On December 13, 2020, some 20 guards led by the new warden of Qarchak Prison, Soghra Khodadadi, raided ward 8, where a dozen political prisoners were detained. Several prisoners were severely beaten and injured. Saba Kord Afshari was hurt in the teeth, and her shoulder and back were bruised.
Saba Kord Afshari was violently moved from Ward 8 to Ward 6 on January 26, 2021, where she later contracted the Covid-19. The relocation of this political prisoner violates the principle of separation of crimes.
