Liebe Leser*innen,

zu dem Bericht ” IRAN: HEALTH TAKEN HOSTAGE: CRUEL DENIAL OF MEDICAL CARE IN IRAN’S PRISONS” über die gesund­heitliche Ver­sorgung in iranis­chen Gefäng­nis­sen vom Juni diesen Jahres hat die Weltärz­teor­gan­i­sa­tion (WMA, World Med­ical Asso­ci­a­tion) fol­gende unter­stützende Pressemit­teilung veröf­fentlicht, die auch HIER direkt ange­se­hen wer­den kann:

 

WORLD MEDICAL ASSOCIATION

News Release

9 Sep­tem­ber 2016

DENIAL OF MEDICAL CARE TO PRISONERS CONDEMNED BY WMA

The with­hold­ing of med­ical care from polit­i­cal pris­on­ers in Iran as a form of pun­ish­ment has been con­demned by the World Med­ical Association.

In a let­ter to Iran’s leader, the Aya­tol­lah Sayed ‘Ali Khamenei, WMA
Pres­i­dent Sir Michael Mar­mot referred to a recent Amnesty Inter­na­tion­al report giv­ing details of med­ical care being denied to polit­i­cal pris­on­ers, includ­ing pris­on­ers of con­science, as a form of addi­tion­al pun­ish­ment, coer­cion or to elic­it confessions.

He writes: ‘We are deeply con­cerned by the issues raised in this report and would like to remind you that the Islam­ic Repub­lic of Iran has rat­i­fied the Inter­na­tion­al Covenant on Eco­nom­ic, Social and Cul­tur­al Rights and is here­by com­mit­ted to imple­ment its pro­vi­sions, includ­ing arti­cle 12 rec­og­niz­ing “the right of every­one to the enjoy­ment of the high­est attain­able stan­dard of phys­i­cal and men­tal health”.’

Sir Michael says the pro­vi­sion of ade­quate med­ical care is a key human right, which under inter­na­tion­al law must not be adverse­ly affect­ed by impris­on­ment. Unit­ed Nations Rules for the Treat­ment of Pris­on­ers pro­vides that “Pris­on­ers should enjoy the same stan­dards of health care that are avail­able in the com­mu­ni­ty, and should have access to nec­es­sary health-care ser­vices free of charge with­out dis­crim­i­na­tion on the grounds of their legal status”.

He goes on: ‘Deny­ing med­ical care amounts to ill treat­ment and can
some­times con­sti­tute a form of tor­ture or oth­er cru­el, inhu­man or degrad­ing treat­ment that are unam­bigu­ous­ly pro­hib­it­ed under inter­na­tion­al human rights law.’

Sir Michael calls on the Iranian author­i­ties to stop with­hold­ing med­ical care as a pun­ish­ment and to ensure that secu­ri­ty offi­cials and prison staff, includ­ing med­ical staff, sus­pect­ed of delib­er­ate­ly deny­ing med­ical care are inves­ti­gat­ed and, where there is evi­dence, are prosecuted.

‘We fur­ther­more call on you to ensure that med­ical deci­sions con­cern­ing the need for on-going care and obser­va­tion out­side prison and the neces­si­ty of release on med­ical grounds are only tak­en by the respon­si­ble health care pro­fes­sion­als and are not over­ruled or ignored by non-med­ical authorities.

‘We appeal to your human­i­ty and sense of jus­tice and trust that you will take prompt­ly all the nec­es­sary steps relat­ed to our demands.’

End

For fur­ther infor­ma­tion please contact:

Dr. Otmar Kloiber WMA Sec­re­tary General

+33 4 50 42 6757 (office)

+33 6 73 90 7686 (mobile)

Nigel Dun­can WMA Pub­lic Rela­tions Consultant

+ 44 (0) 20 8997 3653 (work)

+ 44 (0) 7984 944 403 (mobile)

nduncan@ndcommunications.co.uk

web­site: www wma.net

Fol­low WMA twitter:
http://ndcommunications.hosted.phplist.com/lists/lt.php?id=N0RVBU8BAgxEUlEB

The World Med­ical Asso­ci­a­tion is the inde­pen­dent con­fed­er­a­tion of national
med­ical asso­ci­a­tions from 112 coun­tries and rep­re­sents more than nine
mil­lion physi­cians. Act­ing on behalf of patients and physi­cians, the WMA
endeav­ours to achieve the high­est pos­si­ble stan­dards of med­ical care,
ethics, edu­ca­tion and health-relat­ed human rights for all people.