Sometime ago, Tehran’s Prosecutors office ordered the return of three hospitalized dervishes to prison. The dervishes were returned to prison in less than a week without the doctor’s release. It is interesting to note that the court of law signed a letter of undertaking, in complete boldness, taking responsibility for all consequences to the health of the dervishes.

It is obvious that only the doctor in charge can sign the release of the patient as they are responsible for the patient’s health and any decisions regarding (lack of) necessity of further treatment. Alternatively, the patient or their immediate family can request the release by signing a testimonial accepting responsibility for possible consequences. In fact, a judicial authority’s making decisions regarding matters outside their expertise, even if not unlawful, is inhumane. A judicial authority’s accepting consequences of a prisoner’s incomplete treatment whilst they are unaware of them is ridiculous by itself. However, considering this as just one out of many examples of ignorance and lack of accountability on the part of the justice system and prisons organization towards prisoners’ well being, especially political prisoners helps us realize how a judicial authority can accept such a responsibility in complete calm.

The difficulty involved in transferring prisoners, especially political prisoners, to medical centers, long term denial of medical attention, lack of access to proper medication, etc. in many cases has resulted in the political prisoners’ diseases to intensify and become chronic. In the case of Gonabadi dervishes, imposing an unlawful three month solitary confinement from Bahman 1391 to Ordibehesht 1393 (February 2013 to May 2014) without recreation and also prohibiting transfer to any medical centres for 18 months because of their resistance against authorities’ unlawfully forcing them to wear handcuffs and prison uniforms resulted in irreversible damage to their health to the point where, in some cases, their health conditions became critical. This leads us to conclude that the authorities are evading any responsibility of the consequences of their actions and unfortunately this irresponsibility is hidden from the public eye since the harm is caused over time.
Regarding her husband’s pulmonary illness, the inappropriate conditions in the prison, and the lengthened deprivation of treatment, Mr. Daneshjou’s wife, told Majzooban e Noor: “Mr. Daneshjou has long been suffering asthma, but his condition has aggravated so much so that 50 percent of his lungs have failed which has led to cardiac arrhythmia. This happened when he was confined in Evin’s basement, 209, without recreation he was not allowed to go to a hospital. His conditions deteriorated afterwards. The conditions of his confinement in the public section are extremely worrisome. The compartment he is living in now is Unit 8, with more than 200 prisoners and gross air conditioning”. Mr. Moradi’s wife also talked about her husband’s conditions during his three-year imprisonment: “Due to Mr. Salavati’s forcing him to wear handcuffs and the prison uniform, my husband, who suffers from the cardiovascular disease, was not provided with the chance to visit a doctor, he was taken off his medications during this period, artery blockage made walking difficult for him, so he had to use a stick to walk in prison. Doctors had even warned him of amputation. Finally, as a result of dervishes’ follow-up and their rallies in front of the Prosecutor General’s Office, he was hospitalized for an operation.”

With regard to these two cases, the above mentioned situation begs the question of whether authorities in the legal system and prison whose decisions exacerbated the health conditions of these two prisoners are accountable. Unfortunately, this issue is not limited to these two examples. Rather, most political prisoners are faced with this situation to the point that one is led to assume authorities are using one of their most fundamental rights, access to medical treatment, as a tool to put them under pressure, risking their lives, and knowing they won’t be held accountable by any bodies.

Now that the Judiciary has become so independent that it even makes medical decisions and neglects doctors’ advice and diagnosis of the prisoners’ health conditions, it would be a good idea for this organization to give judges and other judicial officials specialist medical training (!), so that they become at least aware of consequences of prisoners’ diseases that they assume responsibility for.