Arab political prisoner Mokhtar Albushokeh on hunger strike in solitary confinement at Arak prison

Mokhtar Albushokeh, an Arab political prisoner from Khuzestan who has been jailed since 2010, is being held in a solitary cell in Arak prison in unsanitary conditions. HRANA, the news agency of the Human Rights Activists in Iran, announced on Tuesday, 13 October 2026, that the lack of news about his condition has left his family and relatives worried.

According to HRANA, Albushokeh suffers from kidney disease and a hernia and needs surgery. He has gone on hunger strike again in protest at officials' failure to keep their promise to return him to Sheiban prison in Ahvaz. He had earlier staged a six-day hunger strike with the same demand and ended it after officials made a promise, which was never kept.

16 years in prison for a cultural activist

Mokhtar Albushokeh was a member of the Al-Hiwar cultural and artistic institute and was arrested in 2010. He was first sentenced to death; the sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment, and in July–August this year it was reduced to 25 years and one day in prison. In January–February 2026, after 15 years in Sheiban prison in Ahvaz, he was transferred to Arak prison, a move that has put him far from his family in Khuzestan.

This is not the first time his health has been neglected in prison. According to recorded details of his case, the prison clinic's doctor had earlier said that surgery was the only treatment for his hernia, but the Prisons Organization did not pay for it and he was denied treatment. In 2012, Albushokeh also went on hunger strike together with several other Arab prisoners in protest at a death sentence and prison conditions.

Keeping political prisoners in solitary confinement and denying them treatment is a pattern that human rights organizations have repeatedly reported in the prisons of the Islamic Republic, from the beating of a political prisoner's family in the visiting hall of Evin to the lack of news about the whereabouts of activists such as Nahid Khodajoo.

Mokhtar Albushokeh has been in prison for 16 years and is now held in solitary confinement in Arak with kidney disease and a hernia.