An Iranian political prisoner has sent a voice message to Javaid Rehman, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in Iran, describing what he says is the torture that he has faced in detention.
Khaled Pirzadeh, a former bodybuilding champion who has been in Ahvaz Central Prison since June 2019, told Javaid Rehman in his message that he has suffered numerous injuries as a result of the harsh treatment, including beatings.
“I am talking to you from the dungeons of oppression and tyranny in Iran. For more than sixteen months, I have been hospitalized in Ahvaz Central Prison due to the injuries caused by the brutal agents of the Islamic republic,” Pirzadeh said, adding that claims by Iranian authorities about human rights were "a big lie."
Pirzadeh said that he suffered from a fracture in his spine and that his left leg was also broken. He also said he was suffering from kidney failure as well as digestive and heart problems, which caused his weight to drop sharply from 127 kilograms to 57 kilograms.
Pirzadeh said the Iranian judiciary and prison authorities have refused to provide him with outside health treatment, adding "they have only transferred me to the prison hospital and there they have filed a false medical case for me.”
Pirzadeh was arrested by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps in June 2018. He was later sentenced to a total of 7 years in prison by the Tehran's Islamic Revolutionary Court on charges of "assembly and collusion with the intention of disrupting the security of the country" and "insulting the leadership.” The sentence was later upheld by an appeals court.
He was initially held in the notorious Evin prison in the Iranian capital, Tehran. But in July 2021, as part of his punishment, he was transferred to Ahvaz prison in southwest Iran, which is far from where he and his family live.
In recent years, Pirzadeh has gone on hunger strike many times to protest his conditions in prison, but prison authorities and the Iranian judiciary have ignored his demands.