The Kurdistan Human Rights Network (Tora Mafê Mirov a Kurdistanê) announced that on 22 September, a 23-year-old man by the name of Emir Hisên Hatemî, from the Sirwan region of Ilam in Rojhelat (Iranian Kurdistan), died as a result of torture he was subjected to in Feşfuye Prison in Tehran, MA reports.
Relatives of the young man gathered outside Feşfuye Prison yesterday and demanded an explanation from officials of the Iranian regime.
According to a statement made by members of his family to the Kurdistan Human Rights Network, Emir Hisên was detained and taken to Feşfuye Prison in Tehran ten days before because of an outstanding fine in an old case. He had gone to the police station to collect his father’s car when he was detained.
In the statement, the family said that in the last phone call Emir Hisên had with his father, on 21 September, he told him that he had been subjected to severe torture in prison and that he was to be sent to hospital. It is reported that the family went to see Hisên at the hospital but were prevented, and that the following day they received news of his death.
It is reported that after his family gathered outside Feşfuye Prison, Emir’s body was handed over to them and they took it to the village of Sîrwan Lerênî for burial.
Torture in Iran’s prisons has been on the public agenda recently, when the CCTV at Evin Prison, Iran’s most notorious, housing many political prisoners, was hacked, exposing extreme physical violence against the prisoners within the prison.
After the video went viral on social media the Iranian authorities accepted the existence of torture in prisons in Iran.