Since the beginning of the current Iranian revolution, countless Iranians have been arrested under false pretenses and accusations and have been subjected to physical and mental torture. So far, many have gone through unfair trials at Islamic Republic courts and have received heavy sentences while being denied access to a lawyer of their choice. Meanwhile, healthcare professionals have not been spared from this cruelty and some even have been targeted by the Islamic Republic judiciary system. In general, healthcare professionals have been arrested due to one of the following reasons over the past four months:

1. Fulfilling their professional duty, i.e., providing medical services to the injured in medical facilities or during home visits.
2. Participating in gatherings if front of medical councils, particularly in Tehran, Shiraz, and Mashhad. During these gatherings, healthcare professionals peacefully protested being denied the right to treat the injured and wounded, condemned using ambulances to transport detainees or regime oppressive forces as well as attacking medical facilities and harassment of the medical staff while providing medical services to the wounded.
3. Refusing to put on mandatory hijab while working in medical facilities (in case of those whose genders were assigned female at birth)
4. Participating in street protests with the slogan “Women, Life, Freedom” and focused on the demand to change the country’s current political system

Although the Islamic Republic, similar to other dictatorships, refuses to announce the exact statistics of those arrested, injured, and killed, reliable news agencies inside and outside Iran indicate that so far, at least five healthcare professionals have been killed during the current Iranian revolution, as follows: Dr. Aida Rostami (general practitioner), Dr. Parisa Bahmani (surgeon), Mrs. Maedeh Javanfar (nurse), Aylar Haghi (medical student of Tabriz University of Medical Sciences), and Maral Amiri (medical student of Shiraz University of Medical Sciences).

Also, our team has successfully verified the identity of 50 detainees among the medical staff and is closely following their judicial process. These fifty people work in the fields of medicine, nursing, anesthesia, pharmacy, dentistry, occupational therapy, psychology, orthopedics, psychiatry, and radiology. Many of them have been released on bail after a few days to a few months, and are mostly currently awaiting their verdicts. Others are either serving their sentences or waiting to be assigned to courts while remaining in police custody.

So far, the issued sentences include prison, a ban on leaving the country, long-term exile to a city far from the place of residence, a ban on owning or using mobile phones and social media networks, and conducting research based on religious texts and Islamic education. Notably, in one case the (Dr. Hamid Ghareh Hassanlou) execution sentence was initially issued but got revoked after the strong reaction of various medical and political individuals and institutions inside and outside Iran, and the wait for the announcement of the new sentence continues. The table below shows the names of some of the detainees among the healthcare professionals along with some relevant details.

For the names and details of the arrested please visit the link below: