Iran ‘toying with life’ of dissident filmmaker: Amnesty

PARIS: Iran is "toying with the life" of dissident filmmaker Mohammad Nourizad who is seriously ill in prison after torture which allegedly included multiple injections of an unknown substance into his genitals, Amnesty International charged on Friday.

Nourizad, who has written and directed several films, has been serving since August 2019 a prison sentence totalling over 17 years on charges of insulting supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, according to Amnesty.

Amnesty said his health has been deteriorating in Tehran’s Evin prison due to "prolonged denial of access to adequate specialised medical care for his heart disease and diabetes". Doctors have urged that he be admitted to hospital for treatment of a heart condition but the authorities have refused this so far, the rights group added.

"The Iranian authorities are cruelly toying with the life of" Nourizad, it said. Amnesty cited a letter which it said Nourizad had written from Evin in April where he described how he had been injected with an unknown substance "eight times into my penis".