On September 25, 2025, Somayeh Rashidi, a 42-year-old Iranian woman detained at Qarchak Women’s Prison, died after repeated epileptic seizures and a delayed transfer to hospital.
Rashidi’s background illustrates both her vulnerability and her defiance. She lived in Tehran, came from a working-class family, and was arrested on April 25, 2025 in the Javadieh neighborhood for writing anti-government slogans. After two days of interrogation, she was taken first to Evin Prison and later transferred to Qarchak Women’s Prison following the June 2025 Israeli airstrike that damaged Evin. She was not unknown to the authorities: in 2022, during the “Women, Life, Freedom” protests sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini, she had been arrested and held at Qarchak. Fellow prisoner and journalist Elaheh Mohammadi, later convicted for reporting on Amini’s death, recalled that “Somayeh was our cellmate in 2022, a quiet working-class woman who ate little and waited for the day of freedom. She was released in the February 2023 amnesty, but five months ago she was arrested again—for what? For writing slogans.”
The judiciary later accused her of “collaborating with the Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK)” and claimed that she had sent photos and videos of sabotage operations—including burning Basij bases and mosque entrances—to the organization. Officials asserted that she had been arrested “with special equipment” in her possession. Rights groups rejected these allegations as a strategy to discredit her and justify harsh punishment for peaceful dissent.
The Iranian judiciary confirmed Somayeh’s death but withheld her full name, while rights groups, journalists, and former inmates identified her and condemned the circumstances. Conflicting narratives emerged: the judiciary claimed she had been under continuous medical supervision, while activists accused prison authorities of deliberate neglect, beating, and systematic dismissal of her medical needs. Her death exemplifies the grave risks faced by political prisoners in Iran, particularly women, and reflects broader patterns of custodial abuse that violate the right to life, freedom from torture and ill-treatment, and the right to health.
One week earlier, civil society groups had already raised alarm about her deteriorating health after she was transferred from Qarchak Prison to a hospital in Tehran Province. Her medical condition had been well known to both inmates and prison officials. She suffered from epilepsy and had a long history of seizures. According to the Iranian Human Rights Center, Rashidi repeatedly complained of severe headaches and seizures to prison medical staff, but her symptoms were dismissed as malingering, and she was only given sedatives. On 16 September 2025, her health deteriorated sharply. Despite the severity of her seizures and vomiting, prison officials delayed transferring her to hospital. When she was finally moved to Mofatteh Hospital, she was already unconscious. Nine days later, she was declared dead.
The judiciary’s narrative presented a very different picture. It claimed she had been seen eight times by general practitioners and six times by neurologists and internal medicine specialists, that she was on psychiatric medication, and that she had admitted to addiction to synthetic drugs upon entering prison. These claims were widely questioned. Human rights groups pointed out that her underlying illness was epilepsy, not addiction, and that her repeated medical complaints had been systematically ignored. Family and activist sources emphasized that the judiciary’s framing aimed to shift responsibility away from prison authorities by portraying her as fatally ill or self-destructive.
Her death sparked immediate outrage. Political activist Hassan Asadi Zaidabadi noted that if she was truly as ill as officials claimed, then the law required her imprisonment to be suspended: “Why was the prison sentence of someone in such a critical condition not stopped, as the law demands? You knew her condition. The forensic medical authorities, prison officials, and judicial enforcement agencies must all be held accountable.”
From a human rights perspective, multiple violations are evident. The right to life, guaranteed by Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, was undermined by the authorities’ apparent failure to provide timely and effective medical care. The prohibition of torture and inhumane treatment, enshrined in Article 7 of the ICCPR and Article 16 of the Convention Against Torture, was breached through the deliberate dismissal of her seizures and complaints. The right to health, reflected in the Mandela Rules, was ignored by substituting sedation for real treatment and delaying hospitalization until it was too late. Even under Iran’s own domestic law, authorities had a duty to suspend imprisonment for prisoners with life-threatening conditions, a duty they failed to honor.
From the perspective of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), Somayeh Rashidi’s death demonstrates the urgent need for the Iranian government to comply with its international rights obligations, which is long past due. An independent and transparent inquiry into the failures that contributed to Rashidi’s death, leading to accountability and reforms, appears urgently needed. Iranian authorities must ensure that all detainees receive timely and adequate medical treatment moving forward, as required under both international law and Iran’s own legal codes. NIAC extends its deepest condolences to Somayeh Rashidi’s family, friends, and fellow prisoners, and mourns alongside all who grieve her loss. Her death is a painful reminder of the human cost of repression and neglect. We reiterate our call for the immediate release of all political prisoners in Iran, whose imprisonment is itself a violation of fundamental rights.