Repression of women prisoners in Urmia resumes

After the hunger strike launched by female prisoners in the Iranian prison of Urmia, in October, the Iranian state forces showed a softening and promised to end their repression policies. However, this attitude did not last long and just ten days after promising to ease conditions, they started to use torture again.

Women prisoners said that they would start protests again if the Iranian state did not give up on these policies.

Prisoners requests accepted

When the women in Urmia did not accept the increasing pressure, torture and the imposition of compulsory participation in the courses determined by the prison administration last October, a telephone ban was imposed and the air time was reduced to one hour.

Women prisoners started a protest. First they burned the blankets. After ANF published the news indicating that the prison administration had put the rioting prisoners in cells, tortured them and threatened them with death, the prison administration met with the political prisoners and said that they would accept all the conditions of the prisoners if they ended the resistance. Thereupon, the political prisoners announced that they had ended the rebellion on 22 October 2021.

New repression

A month had not gone by since the end of the protest when prison authorities started to apply new methods of pressure on prisoners. Now air time is completely banned. The majority of female prisoners were put in a ward. The number of prisoners in each ward, which was about 20, has increased to 40 in the last week.

Women prisoners say they will start a new protest

Women prisoners said that they were deliberately kept together, especially during the coronavirus epidemic, despite the risk of contagion. They said they would go on hunger strike again if the repression continued.