From Human Right Watch

(Beirut) – Iranian authorities should immediately carry out an independent and impartial investigation into the death of an imprisoned activist on a hunger strike, Human Rights Watch said today. Anyone found responsible for wrongdoing in the death of Vahid Sayadi Nasiri should be held accountable. Iranian authorities have systematically failed to conduct transparent investigations into at least prior four deaths in custody during 2018.

On December 13, the authorities informed Sayadi Nasiri’s family that he had died in a hospital in Qom. He had been convicted of “insulting the Supreme Leader and sacred belief and propaganda against the state.” He began a hunger strike in September and later asked to be transferred out of a ward that included prisoners convicted of violent crimes, two sources told Human Rights Watch. The authorities have yet to conduct any transparent investigation into the five deaths in detention during 2018, but have claimed that three cases were suicides.

“The deaths of dissidents and others whom Iran’s judiciary should never have imprisoned in the first place is a deadly travesty of justice,” said Michael Page, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Iranian authorities have a responsibility to protect the lives of all detainees and impartially investigate any deaths that occur.”

Mehdi Kaheh, the prosecutor of Qom, told reporters on December 13 that Sayadi Nasiri was suffering from “liver issues,” that “his condition deteriorated in detention,” and that he died after seven days in the hospital. However, Sayadi Nasiri’s sister, Elaheh, told United States-funded Radio Farda on December 14 that he had been transferred to the hospital a week before for gastrointestinal bleeding and was transferred back to the prison. “The night before when his health deteriorated, he was hospitalized again for a couple of hours,” she said. The Radio Farda website report quoted her as saying that the medical examiners told her that the hunger strike, gastrointestinal bleeding, and the “failure of bowel and liver” were the causes of his death.

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