A human rights watchdog has said a jailed Iranian activist may soon die on hunger strike in prison.
The Centre for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI), a New York-based advocacy group, urged the United Nations and other international organizations to demand the release of Farhad Meysami.
A physician by profession, Meysami, who has been in jail since 2018, was one of the first male activists to go to prison in Iran for challenging the compulsory hijab for women, according to CHRI Deputy Director Jasmin Ramsey.
Meysami reportedly began his most recent hunger strike in October last year, in protest against government killings and court-approved executions of demonstrators.
Photos circulated on social media appear to show the Iranian physician in an extremely emaciated state.
The images have sparked outrage online, with many commentators comparing Meysami’s physical condition to those of prisoners held in Nazi death camps during the Second World War.
Iranian authorities have denied any claims that Meysami is on hunger strike, asserting that the images were in fact taken during a previous civil protest undertaken by the activist four years ago.
State news outlets have reportedly posted what they claim are more recent photos of Meysami, in which he appears healthy and is seen sitting beside a packet of potato chips in his cell.
BBC’s Persian Service has since published a letter from the activist, in which he demands an end to executions, the release of political prisoners, and that the government rescind its policy on the hijab.
Meysami said in his letter: ‘I will continue my impossible mission in the hope that [these things] may become possible later on with a collective effort.’
He added: ‘At a time when the rulers have denied the people their rights to a healthy body, livelihood and dignity, leaving nothing but daily pain and suffering, I have begun my own small contribution, hoping to turn these poisonous times into an antidote.’
CHRI’s Ramsey said: ‘[Meysami] has sacrificed everything to demand basic rights for the Iranian people. The international community should stand with him by amplifying his calls and by demanding his freedom to prevent the death of another political prisoner in Iran.’
Since mass public demonstrations started last year in response to the death of a 22 year old woman, Mahsa Amini, in police custody, at least 500 protesters have been killed and nearly 20,000 people arrested, many of them young men and women.
The case of Astiyazh Haghighi and Amir Mohammad Ahmadi is illustrative of the harsh sentences protesters receive for even the most modest acts of defiance against the ultraconservative Iranian regime.
The couple, in their early twenties, were both imprisoned for more than ten years earlier this week after a video of them dancing together in Tehran’s Azadi Square (‘Freedom Square’) went viral earlier in October.
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