An 80 year old woman was flogged in the Khoy Judiciary in northwestern Iran and was then immediately taken to prison despite her poor condition, a Kurdish human rights group said.

Salbi Marandi was lashed 70 times and was unable to move after the flogging sentence was carried out on November 28. She was taken to Khoy prison to serve her eight month prison term.

According to the Kurdistan Human Rights Network, Salbi Marandi is the mother of Behrouz Zinal Nejad who died in Khoy Prison last year. Behrouz had gone on hunger strike to demand that he be allowed a furlough and died under suspicious circumstances five days later. Khoy prison officials claimed that he committed suicide.

His family rejected the suicide claims after seeing his body and went to the office of the head of prison. Reports indicate that the prison official and the prison judge reacted in an unsuitable way. Arguments ensued between the grieving family and prison officials and some office appliance were damaged.

Following the incident, the head of prison and judge filed charges against the family and the Khoy Public Court sentenced the 80 year old mother, Salbi Marandi, and her daughter Atefeh to 70 lashes and eight months of prison each.

Atefeh has refrained from introducing herself to court for the implementation of the sentence thus far.

Flogging is equivalent to torture.

Torture has been carried out systematically during the almost 40 years of the Islamic Republic of Iran. It is one of the most basic methods of survival for a regime that is on the verge of collapse.

One such example is flogging, used for more than 100 offenses in Iran, which has been institutionalized by the regime in its Islamic Penal Code.