Urgent appeal on behalf Ahwazi prisoners and detainees: Rescue us from prisoners of Iranian regime in Ahwaz

Ahwazna

Horrendous conditions inside prisons are unspeakable and unimaginable, especially if these prisons are in a country ruled by a repressive regime such as that of Iran. In several countries across the world, some abuses against prisoners in a narrow and unsystematic scope.

But in Iran, the situation is totally different. Torture is systematic. Prisoners get tortured for a long time. They also are denied medication.

The woes endured by the people of Ahwaz cannot be epitomized in a few lines. The region is subject to a nine-decade occupation by Iran, where its natural resources, oil, gas, drinking water, and mine are devoured by the Iranian government. Rivers are diverted to the Persian areas. The Ahwazis are banned from giving Arabic names to their children. Infrastructure is devastated and investments are scant.

All these adverse conditions have stoked anger within the people, which is pushing them towards rage and rebellion, which is pursuing medieval methods in repressing foes.

    Let alone the heinous torture inflicted on prisoners, especially who have political affiliations. They demand the basic legal rights such as providing equal opportunities, job, and freedom of staging protests. Whoever enters these prisons should be considered dead, and whoever comes back from there, should be considered resurrected. There are no courts. All trials are held in secret, providing no legal protection for the detainees and lacking the most basic norms pursued worldwide.

This rouge regime breached all the international laws and norms. It started a massive crackdown to assassinate opponents when the head of revolutionary court Sadiq Khalkhali came to office in 1979. And this approach continued in a less flagrant manner by getting rid of prisoners behind bars. The regime hides all proofs and evidence by not informing the relatives of the detainees of the latter's whereabouts. The accusations being leveled at those detainees are ready-made: enmity to God, spreading mischief on earth and other charges that have nothing to do with the truth in both heavenly and man-made laws,

One of the most important revelations is what has been leaked by the former conservative president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is not on good terms with the regime, about torturing women and girls in Kahrizak prison. The US government slapped sanctions on the director of notorious Rajaei Shahr prison as well as the head of the judiciary. Although these prisons see unspeakable violations, they get dwarfed if compared with the prisons in Ahwaz, which are packed with prisoners of different age brackets in bulk numbers. Those people are subject to hellish forms of torture, both physical and psychological. They are insulted, beaten mercilessly to the extent of having permanent disabilities, and denied food and medication.

International organizations such a Red Cross and Amnesty International are banned from entering Ahwaz.  Furthermore, journalists and media figures are told Ahwaz is a military zone and it is off limits for them. All these restrictions increased the suffering of the Ahwazi people who are subject to horrendous prosecution by Mullahs of Iran, with no religious, legal or ethical deterrents trimming the regime's practices.

  According to recent revelations, the regime is said to have arrested over 8,000 protesters, although the regime claims it arrested only 1,000. The Ahwazi cities had the lion's share of these arrests, especially Falahiyeh, where 500 protesters have been arrested only one day after the outbreaks of the protests. Grief and sorrow are overshadowing the Ahwazi households in the aftermath of this massive crackdown.

Eight months ago, the Iranian regime arrested activist Hussein al-Silawi. He was shot several times while being arrested. His conditions are said to be critical. He has been sentenced to death and the sentence will be upheld in Tehran. He was moved to Shaiban prison, where most of the Ahwazi prisoners are experiencing the same nightmarish circumstances.

Silawi is 30 years old. He was born in Iraq's Tikrit. He is self-employed and speaks Arabic and knows nothing about Farsi.

Also, the regime forces arrested Nasser al-Marmadi. He had been led to unknown destination eight months ago. He accompanied Silawi shortly before the latter's arrest. The 35-year Ahwazi national is married and a father of two. He works in the police in the district of al-Malashiya in the capital city of Ahwaz.

A few days thereafter, the Iranian intelligence service arrested their colleague Ali al-Khazraji. He managed to escape but was shot several times. His injury was severe. He fainted on the street and was arrested by the regime's apparatuses. He was transferred to Galstan hospital and then to Shaiban prison.

Khazarji, 25, is single and self-employed. He once resided at al-Thawra district in the capital city of Ahwaz. After he was arrested, his family was forced from home.

The   Ahwazi Defence for Human Rights organization will present a brief report on the woes endured by prisoners in Shaiban prison, where Khazraji and Silawi, who are on the death row, are locked up. The prison's officials have assigned a drug addict to watch over them. He tortures them on a daily basis.

Our prisoners who are detained by the regime are subject to medieval forms of torture by the Iranian authorities. All these measures are taken out of envy and hatred towards the Ahwazis. Those prisoners are physically and psychologically tortured. They call on the international community and the concerned human rights organizations to intervene to rescue them and get their voices heard by the world, exposing the injustices of the Iranian regime, whose criminal courts handed them tough sentences including death verdicts and life imprisonment.

The detainees include Nazim al-Braihi who was sentenced to life imprisonment by the so-called Islamic Revolution Court, Zuhair El Heliji, Yahya Naciri, Khalid Obaidawi, Mahdi Hilfi, and Hassan Abayat, who is sentenced to death.

Upon the foregoing, the Ahwazi Defence for Human Rights organization is calling on all the concerned human rights organization to exert more pressure on the regime to open the doors of its prisons for international inspection such as Shaiban prison and the IRGC prisons. The regime said five prisoners have either committed suicide or died from torture recently. This number is disputed as the regime is accustomed to falsifying the truth, cooking the books and paying no heed to any humanitarian calls. And this will compromise the lives of thousands of detainees who would be subject to torture, murder, rape and other violent sexual abuses as it appeared in the last month's leaked videos from Kahrizak prison. Ignoring these calls will encourage the regime to commit more abuses, with no deterrents or fear of accountability for these repeated and systematic crimes.