The security agencies have made televised confessions and expressions of remorse among the conditions of Zeinab Jalalian's right to access medical services

10:36 - 3 December 2023

Zeinab Jalalian, a Kurdish political prisoner from the city of Maku who is spending her sixteenth year in prison in Yazd, is still deprived of access to adequate medical care due to the opposition of the Ministry of Intelligence.

According to an informed source, the Ministry of Intelligence has made the provision of medical services to Zeinab Jalalian conditional on televised confessions and expressions of regret, and recently, this political prisoner has been interrogated by the Ministry of Intelligence interrogators with handcuffs and shackles, and the intelligence interrogators have threatened her that as long as she does not express regret, she will continue to be deprived of access to medical services and transfer to clinics outside the prison for receiving medical care that is inaccessible in prison.

The informed source added: Zeinab Jalalian's eyes have been seriously damaged due to the lack of access to medical services and her vision is in danger, so much so that she has to use the glasses of other prisoners to study.

The informed source said: This political prisoner, in addition to vision problems, suffers from oral candidiasis, asthma, kidney, and digestive problems and is in poor condition.

The informed source announced: that Zeinab has rejected all the demands of the Ministry of Intelligence interrogators for expressing regret.

Zeinab Jalalian was taken out of Khoy prison for unknown reasons on May 8, 2020, and transferred to the quarantine ward of Qarchak prison in Varamin on May 13 of that year and contracted the coronavirus in that prison.

Zeinab Jalalian was exiled from Qarchak prison in Varamin to Kerman prison on June 26, 2020, and transferred to Yazd prison on November 9 of that year.

Previously, Deniz Jalalian, Zeinab Jalalian's sister, had told Kurdpa about her sister's condition: Zeinab had suffered a lot of pain due to illness in prison and had been deprived of medical treatment. Security forces had told her that she would receive medical treatment and leave if she agreed to cooperate.

This political prisoner was arrested in Kermanshah in February 2008 and after months of detention in solitary confinement in the intelligence office of this city and enduring severe physical and mental torture, she was sentenced to death by the Islamic Revolutionary Court in November 2008 on charges of "acting against national security" and "waging war" through membership in the Free Life Party of Kurdistan (PJAK).

Zeinab Jalalian's death sentence was upheld by the Court of Appeal in May 2009 and this sentence was commuted to life imprisonment with a degree of reduction in November 2011 and then Zeinab was transferred to Khoy city prison.