People Hold Overnight Vigil For Jailed Iran Activist In Hospital
Tehran residents rushed to a hospital Sunday night as news emerged that imprisoned Iranian dissident Hossein Ronaghi had been taken there in a critical condition.
Tehran residents rushed to a hospital Sunday night as news emerged that imprisoned Iranian dissident Hossein Ronaghi had been taken there in a critical condition.
Ronaghi is an Iranian blogger, human rights activist and political dissident who was arrested September 24 along with his lawyers in front of the Evin Prison prosecutor's office and transferred to jail where he was tortured and both of his legs broken.
Ronaghi who has been on hunger strike since his arrest amid antigovernment has refused liquid nourishment and water since Saturday.
Videos on social media show that protesters gathered late Sunday in front of Dey Hospital chanting slogans such as “Death to the Dictator”.
Other videos show police forces firing guns and tear gas to disperse the people gathered in front of the hospital.
People rushed to the hospital after his brother Hassan wrote in a tweet that security agents had moved Ronaghi from prison to a hospital. He said his brother “got on an ambulance fully awake after talking to his mother,” adding “whatever happens to Hossein is nothing more than a pre-planned scenario because they intend to kill him.”
A little later, he wrote in another tweet that agents took Hossein to one of the departments of Dey Hospital adding that they sent out the entire staff and nurses of the ward bringing their own instead.
Following this, the anonymous group called Youth of Tehran's Neighborhoods called on people to gather around Dey Hospital and not let regime forces transfer Ronaghi to an unknown location.
However, based on information received by Iran International, Hossein Ronaghi has been transferred from prison to Sina Hospital in central Tehran.
Reports say he has been at the intensive care unit and cardiac resuscitation was given to him.
Renowned Iranian filmmakers Jafar Panahi and Mohammad Rasoulof, jailed with Ronaghi in Evin, had already expressed concern for his life, warning he could suffer a heart attack at any moment.
Ronaghi, 37, a contributor to The Wall Street Journal, has for years been one of the most fearless critics of the Islamic republic still in the country.
Last week, the paper published and editorial, defending Ronaghi and assailing his detention, saying government accusations that he acted against national security are false.
“His real offense is calling Western attention, including on these pages, to how the regime violates the rights of his compatriots. Mr. Ronaghi refuses to flee Iran, and he surrendered to authorities on Sept. 24 to spare family and friends from the risk of hiding him.” WSJ said expressing concern over his deteriorating health.
In previous rounds of tortures, the dissident has lost one kidney and his second kidney is functioning at 60 percent, according to human rights sources.
Hossein Ronaghi has been arrested and jailed several times in the past 13 years. He was detained in 2009 for his role in the post-election protests. Ronaghi was arrested again in February 2022 after criticizing a bill that would limit internet access in Iran.
On November 6, IRNA News Agency reported that 227 members of the parliament asked the judiciary to deal “decisively with the inciters of the recent riots.”
“In a statement, Iranian lawmakers called for severe punishment of those who incited the recent riots urging Qisas – retaliation in kind—for moharebs,” IRNA reported.
Mohareb, which literally means warrior in Arabic, is used in Islamic law or sharia to mean ‘enemy of God’ which carries the death penalty.
“We, the representatives of this nation, ask all state officials, including the Judiciary, to treat those, who waged war [against the Islamic establishment] and attacked people’s life and property like the Daesh [ISIS], in a way that would serve as a good lesson in the shortest possible time,” state-run Press TV quoted lawmakers as saying.
The statement soon went viral, leaving in its wake a torrent of public criticism both in Iran and abroad. Germany, France and the European Union toughened their positions toward Tehran’s gross violations of human rights, threatening to sanction all the 227 lawmakers.
Abbas Abdi, a reformist politician and pundit in Tehran, slammed the letter saying in a tweet “it was not unexpected that the ones, who have entered the parliament with a low voter turnout, to call for the execution of the protesters.”
The outspoken Sunni Imam of Zahedan Friday prayer, Molavi Abdolhamid, also called the parliamentarian’s letter “shameful” asking them during his sermon on Friday, “Do other parliaments in the world act the same as you did?”
With criticisms mounting, Asr-e Iran daily said it was heard in the corridors of the parliament that “the MPs did not sign this letter.”
Finally on Saturday, ICANA News Agency, which is affiliated with Iran’s parliament, claimed the letter was “basically fake”.
“In the last few hours, a letter signed by 227 parliamentarians has been published on social media. In this letter, addressed to Chief Justice Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Eje'i, it has been asked to classify the case of the arrested persons as Moharebeh (War against God). Let it be known that the nature of this letter is based on lies,” added ICANA.
ICANA did not address the question that if the letter was fake, why the official government news agency IRNA reported it.
Hossein Jalali, an MP, told ISNA on Sunday that “I signed a letter to deal with those who committed murder during recent events, but I heard a second letter was signed and published which is fake.”
Jalali’s remarks confirm that a letter signed by him and other lawmakers had the same content, urging judiciary to call protesters ‘mohareb’ and execute them in retaliation.
Seemingly, the strong reaction by EU politicians and their intention to sanction all the signatories of the letter have now forced them to withdraw from their previous hardline position, denying such a letter.
On Thursday, German member of European Parliament, Hannah Neumann, vehemently slammed Iranian lawmakers for demanding the execution of protesters, saying all these MPs must be sanctioned.
On the other hand, signals by officials asking to remove internet restrictions fuels speculation that the clerical regime is showing leniency amid domestic and international pressure.
Two Parliamentarians on Saturday said, “Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, on behalf of a large number of MPs is pursuing the removal the ban on Instagram and WhatsApp,” adopted after protests began.
According to the Iranian Judiciary, this is only the starting point of trials for those arrested during the protests in the past two months and further trials will be held later.
The Iranian Judiciary has not named the prisoners but claimed that the young man sentenced to death had allegedly set fire to a government office building.
The verdicts have been issued by a "court of first instance" and may be changed if those convicted refer the case to a court of appeal.
No one knows when and where the trials were held or if the accused had a chance to defend themselves. In most similar cases the government does not allow defendants to choose their own lawyers and there is no due process of law.
Meanwhile, the Iranian Prosecutor General, Mohammad Jafar Montazeri has repeated claims that "the ongoing protests in Iran are being steered by the United States and other Western countries. They have deceived some of the protesters and paid some others to stop the Islamic Republic's progress."
Montazeri claimed that protesters have killed some 40 Revolutionary Guards, Basij militia and other security officers so far.
The first verdicts against Iranian protesters have been issued about a week after some 227 Iranian lawmakers called for the execution of detained protesters. However, during the past two days some of them have attempted to deny the report after extremely strong condemnations by other politicians, pundits and social media users.
Some activists on social media have threatened to fight back violently and go beyond turban-tossing as their response to executions of protesters by the hardliner Judiciary and security forces.
Prosecutor Montazeri added that although courts have been ordered to investigate the cases quickly, still trials may take longer than expected as hearing sessions need to be furthered diligently.
In the meantime, Iranian pundits advised both the government and protesters to avoid radicalism. Political activist Mansoor Haghighatpur told Nameh News website that "both left-wing and right-wing radicals in Iran have gone too far, and the Islamic Republic should get rid of both."
He added that the radicals prevented the fruition of negotiations to revive the 2015 nuclear deal, attacked the Saudi and British embassies in Iran and caused many further losses to the Islamic Republic and the people of Iran." He was referring to hardliners loyal to the core of the regime controlled by the 83-year-old ruler Ali Khamenei and the Revolutionary Guard. These elements operate freely when needed as was the case with the attack and destruction of the Saudi embassy in January 2016, when no one was punished.
Haghighatpur added that the officials must ensure the participation of all political groups in decision making if the country is going to be run based on democracy.
He argued that the government should help people to voice their demands and it must use the state television and social media for this purpose. This comes while the government has banned access to social media and the state television has been condemned by many for its unilateral approach to programming. Haghighatpur also said that people should be allowed to gather in front of the Parliament (Majles) to voice their political demands.
“We saw them attacking moderate politicians” such as Hassan Khomeini, Ali Akbar Nateq Nouri and Ali Larijani during their speeches. "If radicals are allowed to be active, they will cause further damage to the regime," Haghighatpur said, without alluding to who controls and directs these forces.
In a statement from Evin Prison Saturday, imprisoned filmmakers Jafar Panahi and Mohammad Rasoulof warned about serious deterioration of Ronaghi’s health and said he is in danger of having a stroke any minute after fifty days of hunger strike.
Hossein Ronaghi who has been on hunger strike since his arrest on September 24 amid Mahsa Amini protests has refused liquid nourishment and water since Saturday. Ronaghi who was badly beaten in detention by agents who broke both his legs had said he would refuse all food and liquid nourishment if he was arrested again.
In September after protests began, security agents tried to enter Ronaghi’s apartment while he was being interviewed by Iran International TV online. “I think they are here,” he said before the interview ended but he managed to escape. He was arrested violently along with two of his lawyers when he presented himself to the authorities.
The reason he escaped the first arrest was that once plainclothesmen take someone away, they can kill the person, while the authorities can claim no knowledge of the incident. Ronaghi, therefore, decided to officially present himself to the prosecutor at Evin Prison.
His brother Hassan Ronaghi in a tweet Sunday said his brother’s condition has worsened and he has been taken to the prison clinic. The family say he has been denied proper medical care since his arrest despite several serious medical conditions including partial kidney failure, and broken legs.
Ronaghi who was first arrested during the 2009 post-election unrest has been in and out of prison several times. He lost one kidney because of physical abuse and torture, lack of medical treatment, and the effect of several hunger strikes during his previous imprisonments. His remaining kidney is badly damaged too.
Ronaghi previously went on hunger strike three times. -- in June, August, and October 2010 -- in protest to maltreatment and pressures to consent to televised false ‘confessions’ against himself and others. He only ended his hunger strike when his mother also went on a hunger strike that lasted nearly two weeks.
Ronaghi’s father was hospitalized on November 3 when he had a stroke outside Evin while trying to talk to prison authorities about his son’s situation.
Hassan Ronaghi said Saturday that his brother had seizures several times, but judicial authorities refuse to free him despite medical authorities’ confirmation that he is not fit to serve a prison sentence.
“Prison authorities and the Evin Prosecutor want to kill Hossein,” he wrote, adding that the Supreme Leader’s Office, intelligence ministry and judicial authorities should be held to account if something happens to his brother.
Panahi and Rasoulof warned about Ronaghi’s determination to start refusing liquids and said he could lose his life like prisoner of conscience Behnam Mahjoubi and jailed poet Baktash Abtin both of whom were denied timely medical care and died at Evin Prison in the past ten months.
In a tweet Saturday, Fakhri Mohtashami, the wife of prominent political prisoner Mostafa Tajzadeh who is also serving a sentence at Evin Prison, said her husband had seriously warned about Ronaghi’s condition in a phone call from the prison. Tajzadeh told his wife that Ronaghi is extremely weak, and something had to be done before it got too late.
“Hossein Ronaghi’s health is failing...He has decided to refuse water, sugar and salt. This means danger of death,” former political prisoner Kianoosh Sanjari tweeted Saturday while remembering the loss of his comrade Akbar Mohammadi who died of hunger strike and lack of medical care in 2006 while both were held at Evin Prison.
Since the current wave of demonstrations began in mid-September, following the death in custody of a young woman, more and more athletes have expressed solidarity with the people either in bold public statements or through different forms of disobedience, such as not singing the Islamic Republic’s national anthem during matches.
In less than a month, the pace of the athletes showing support for the protests has accelerated as the Iranian football, beach football, waterpolo, basketball, and sitting volleyball teams refused to sing along with the anthem, which is customary in almost all international competitions. Now with the biggest sporting event on the horizon, the regime is resorting to whatever it can to stifle the voices of dissent.
Authorities have made serious threats against athletes and other celebrities to stop them from public displays of solidarity with protesters but to no avail.
Threatening to remove players from the national squad, Ahmad Rastineh, the spokesman of the parliament’s cultural committee, said on Sunday that "if a player does not have a proper understanding” of the current affairs, it is not necessary to keep them in the national outfit.
Earlier in the month, the beach football federation of the Islamic Republic threatened the players of the national squad for their acts of solidarity with the antigovernment protests.
The national team players did not cheer or celebrate after winning the cup following their final victory against Brazil and also refused to sing the national anthem of the Islamic Republic at the beginning of their semifinal match against the UAE.
During the final, Iranian striker Saeed Piramoun expressed his solidarity with Iranian protesters by miming the hair cutting gesture after scoring a goal. The gesture has become an international symbol of solidarity with Iranian women and the protest movement with many international athletes and celebrities posting images of themselves re-enacting the move. Islamic Republic officials also issued a threatening message to the United Arab Emirates that hosted the Beach Soccer Intercontinental Cup.
A new trending act of solidarity that is catching on in the past several days, is the reenactment of a photo of one the protesters killed by security forces in the Baluch-majority province of Sistan and Baluchestan.
The iconic photo, which is from an earlier event, shows Khodayar Lojei handcuffed to a post while a glass of water is placed near him but with a distance he cannot reach. Several football and futsal players sat in the same position instead of cheering after scoring a goal while another player put a symbolic glass of water near them.
Also on Sunday, Andrea Stramaccioni, the former Italian coach of the popular football club Esteqlal, said in an Instagram story that he was approached by many Iranian state TV sport programs to appear in their shows as a guest during the World Cup, noting that he rejected the offers because the state broadcaster is suppressing the voice of people.
Addressing the Iranians, he said, “My heart is with you and refusing participation in programs and television you don’t approve of is the least I can do to support your brave movement. Do not lose your hope because the Iranian people we saw deserve a lot more than what they already have.”
During a press conference after the Iranian basketball team’s match with the Chinese squad, several journalists walked out as a show of solidarity with their peers arrested for reporting on Islamic Republic’s deadly violence against protesters.
"Our colleagues have been arrested for some time and are now in prison. We cannot [continue our work] until they are released... We have decided to leave this place. We are not spies or criminals. We are journalists. We are only journalists; sport journalists," said one of the reporters before leaving the room.