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Jailed Iranian Kurdish activist continues
to refuse food
22.6.2012 |
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Jailed Iranian Kurdish human rights activist
Mohammad Sadiq Kaboudvand,
currently in Iranian prison serving an 11-year
sentence. •
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June
22, 2012
TEHRAN, — Iranian political prisoner
Mohammad Seddigh
Kaboudvand is continuing with his
hunger strike after more than a month
of refusing food, his wife reported after a recent
visit with him, Radio zamaneh
reported.
The International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran
reports that Parinaz Baghban Hassani said her
husband told her that he will not stop his hunger
strike until the authorities grant him leave to
visit his sick son.
The jailed human rights activist reportedly appeared
very sick and weak but he was determined to continue
with his protest.
Kaboudvand broke an earlier hunger strike at the
urging of authorities, who promised him a furlough,
but they broke that promise after he complied.
The family is extremely concerned about the jailed
activist’s health and fear that he might suffer a
fatal health crisis, as happened to another
political prisoner, Hoda Saber, who died from a
heart attack while he was on a hunger strike.
Kaboudvand has reportedly been transferred to the
infirmary on several occasions.
Kaboudvand’s wife has urged the authorities to
comply with the Islamic Republic’s own legal
provisions, which allow prisoners to go on leave and
visit their families.
The state coroner has already declared Mohammad Seddigh
Kaboudvand to be medically unfit to serve out his
sentence, but the judiciary has refused to heed the
evaluation.
Kaboudvand was arrested in 2007 on the charge of
“acting against national security” by establishing
the Kurdistan Defence of Human Rights Organization.
He was sentenced to 11 years in jail on top of which
he was given another year for “propaganda against
the Islamic Republic.”
Publishing the weekly magazine Payam-e Mardom was
also among his charges.
In May 2012, in the press briefing, U.S. State Department spokesperson Nuland
called on the Iranian government to release
Mohammad Seddigh Kaboudvand,www.ekurd.net
along with the
approximately 90 other journalists it is currently
holding in Iranian prisons. The United States, as
President Barack Obama has said, will continue to
speak out “when fundamental human rights are denied,
when freedom of judiciaries or legislatures or the
press is threatened.”
In 2009, Kaboudvand
won a Hellman/Hammett grant for persecuted writers
from campaign group Human Rights Watch, as well as
the International Journalist of the Year Award at
the Press Gazette British Press Awards.
Copyright ©, respective author or news agency,
radiozamaneh.com | ekurd.net | Agencies
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