For the past two months, Pourmand has been jailed in Tehran in a group cell with a number of well-known political dissidents. He had lost nearly 40 pounds while undergoing interrogation in the first five months of strict isolation.
"The prisons in Bandar-i Bushehr are terrible," one Iranian source commented. "By law, he should be allowed visitors once or twice a week. But in Iran, nobody pays any attention to the law."
According to rapporteurs of two working groups monitoring arbitrary detention and free expression in Iran under the auspices of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, the Iranian judiciary routinely ignores the legal rights of citizens subjected to arrest and imprisonment.
"The rapporteurs have observed the use of arbitrary procedures by the judicial institutions violating the most basic rights of defendants, who are tried in secret hearings without a lawyer being present," declares the groups' report. They also noted "very harsh prison conditions, including long periods in solitary confinement, that are equivalent to torture."
Pourmand's officer salary was suspended at the time of his arrest, with his entire pension cancelled after his military court conviction. Although court orders were issued immediately to evict his family from their army housing, local authorities in Bandar-i Bushehr have postponed the eviction of his wife and two teenage sons until the end of the current school term.
"Hamid's wife and sons feel very alone now," an Iranian source told Compass. "They are isolated, without any source of income, and no place to go when summer comes." Reportedly, local church leaders are under such government pressure that they do not dare to have any contact with her and the children.
Copyright 2005 Compass Direct
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