JAILED JOURNALIST ON HUNGER STRIKE

Journalist Mohammad Sadiq Kabudvand has been on hunger strike since 26 May 2012 in
Tehran’s Evin Prison in protest at the Iranian authorities denial of his repeated requests
to visit his gravely-ill son. Mohammad Saqid Kabudvand is a prison of conscience.

Mohammad Sadiq Kabudvand’s son Pejman has been ill since January 2012 with an undiagnosed condition that
is apparently affecting his kidneys and blocking veins in his legs. Since learning of his son’s illness, Mohammad
Sadiq Kabudvand has been allowed to visit him in hospital only once, for two-and-a-half hours, in February 2012..

Prison leave for family visits of this kind is permitted under Iran’s Prison Regulations, and is usually granted.

Mohammad Sadiq Kabudvand may have been denied such permission to visit his son to pressure him to stop the
activism he has continued from inside prison through open letters to officials.

Mohammad Sadiq Kabudvand’s own health has deteriorated as a result of his hunger strike. The prison medical
official and doctors have recommended he be transferred to a hospital for appropriate care. Mohammad Sadiq
Kabudvand refused to be transferred, as he was to be handcuffed, and was concerned that he would be forcibly
fed, intravenously or otherwise, in hospital. He is now receiving daily injections from the prison doctors that are
supposed to support his weakened kidneys.

Mohammad Saqid Kabudvand, who founded the NGO Human Rights Organization of Kurdistan, was arrested on 1
July 2007 and is serving a 10-and-a-half year prison sentence arising from his journalism and human rights work.

Please write immediately in Persian, Arabic, English or your own language:
 Calling on the Iranian authorities to release Mohammad Sadiq Kabudvand immediately and unconditionally, as
he is a prisoner of conscience, held solely for the peaceful exercise of his rights to freedom of expression and
association in his journalism and human rights work;
 Calling on them to ensure that Mohammad Sadiq Kabudvand receives any medical attention he may require,
including treatment at a medical facility outside the prison, as recommended by the doctors of Evin Prison;
 Calling on them to allow him prison leave to visit his ailing son as stipulated in the Prison Regulations..

PLEASE SEND APPEALS BEFORE 22 AUGUST 2012 TO:

Leader of the Islamic Republic

Ayatollah Sayed ‘Ali Khamenei

The Office of the Supreme Leader

Islamic Republic Street – End of Shahid

Keshvar Doust Street,

Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran

Email: info_leader@leader.ir

Twitter: @khamenei_ir #Iran must

release #Kabudvand now

Salutation: Your Excellency

Head of the Judiciary

Ayatollah Sadegh Larijani

[Care of] Public Relations Office

Number 4, 2 Azizi Street intersection

Tehran,

Islamic Republic of Iran

Email: bia.judi@yahoo.com (Subject

Line: FAO Ayatollah Sadegh Larijani)

Salutation: Your Excellency

And copies to:

Secretary General High Council for

Human Rights

Mohammed Javad Larijani

c/o Office of the Head of the Judicary

Pasteur St, Vali Asr Ave

South of Serah-e Jomhouri

Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran

Email: info@humanrights-iran.ir

(Subject line: FAO Mohammad Javad

Larijani

Also send copies to diplomatic representatives accredited to your country.

Please insert local diplomatic addresses below

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

In an open letter dated 27 May 2012, Mohammad Sadiq Kabudvand wrote “the Prosecutor and the security apparatuses
continue to deny me [prison] leave because of their enmity, grudge and malice towards me as a human rights activist; this
despite my having served half of my illegal and unjust prison sentence and my son’s incurable diseases and acute emergency
situation . . therefore, to protest the illegal and inhumane behaviour of these judicial and security officials, I once again have
launched an indefinite hunger strike as of 9 PM, Saturday 26 May 2012”.
Following his arrest on 1 July 2007, Mohammad Sadiq Kabudvand was initially held in Section 209 of Evin Prison, believd to be
under the control of the Ministry of Intelligence.

He spent 40 days in solitary confinement, and has said that he was interrogated
while he was blindfolded and his hands and feet were bound. He went on an eight-day hunger strike in protest at the conditions
under which he was held and interrogated, during which time prison authorities told him that if he needed to use the toilet, he
had to seek formal permission in writing. This exacerbated an existing kidney complaint.

Mohammad Sadiq Kabudvand passed out for about 30 minutes on 19 May 2008. He was given first aid by another prisoner who
is a doctor. His fellow prisoners called for help and asked guards to take him to the prison clinic, but they left him in his cell.

The
following day, he was forced to attend a scheduled trial session. Though the session was cancelled when a representative from
the Prosecutor’s Office failed to appear, the trial judge ordered that Mohammad Sadiq Kabudvand should receive appropriate
medical care in a hospital outside Evin Prison. Despite this, Mohammad Sadiq Kabudvand was not allowed to seek treatment in
a hospital but instead received medical attention at the prison’s medical facility.

Mohammad Sadiq Kabudvand was transferred to hospital outside Evin Prison on 9 January 2012. According to his wife, Parinaz
Baghbani Hassani, during a prison visit on or about 30 December 2011, Mohammad Sadiq Kabudvand said he had been feeling
dizzy. She told Amnesty International that he had phoned her on 10 January to say that he had been taken to hospital for
medical tests the previous day. These included a prostate examination, blood tests and cardiovascular tests. Based on the
results of the medical examinations, doctors had recommended admitting Mohammad Sadiq Kabudvand to the hospital and
performing surgery on his prostate gland. Instead he was taken back to Evin Prison. It is not clear whether he received the
medical care he needed.

Mohammad Sadiq Kabudvand, a member of Iran’s Kurdish minority, is the founder and Chair of the Human Rights Organization
of Kurdistan (HROK, sometimes known as RMMK from its Kurdish name). Until 2004, he was also the editor of a weekly
newspaper, Payam-e Mardom-e Kordestan, which carried articles promoting the cultural, social and political rights of Iran’s
Kurdish minority. Payam-e Mardom-e Kordestan was issued with a three-year ban by Iran’s judiciary on 27 June 2004 for
“disseminating separatist ideas and publishing false reports”. On appeal to the Supreme Court, this ban was lifted, though the
newspaper has not reopened.

Mohammad Sadiq Kabudvand was transferred to Mahabad prison, in West Azerbaijan Province, north-west Iran on 16 July
2009. Three days later, he appeared before Branch One of the Revolutionary Court in the north-eastern city of Mahabad,
charged with “propaganda against the system” for the publication and distribution of pamphlets about Kurdish women.

Mohammad Sadiq Kabudvand reportedly told the court that “the materials printed in the pamphlet referred to in the indictment
have no resemblance to the literature published by HROK. The materials brought out by HROK have the logo and the address
of the organization and we can only be responsible for the materials published on the website of the organization.” No verdict is
known to have been issued in this trial.

He was previously the subject of UA 171/07 (MDE 13/081/2007) and follow-ups.

Name: Mohammad Sadqiq Kabudvand