Suspicious Deaths in Iran Jails Show Pattern of Abuse by Regime

NCRI – There have been a number of suspicious suicides in Iran’s prisons in recent weeks, which are thankfully getting international attention and garnering criticism for the Iranian Regime, but what is behind them?

The Iranian Regime has long described deaths at their prisons as suicides, when the real culprit is either negligence or outright attacks from the Regime – many of the victims are political prisoners who die under torture – and it serves two main purposes: hide the Regime’s wrongdoing and diverting attention.

Let’s look back at some of them.

Saeed Imami, deputy Minister of Intelligence under President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, was the main suspect in a series of murders of writers and political activists in the 1990s. Shortly after his arrest, he was reported to have committed suicide in the notorious Evin Prison.

This diverted attention from the murders and allowed the mullahs to find him guilty, whether or not he was the real subject.

Zahra Kazemi, an Iranian-Canadian photojournalist, was covering the college student protests rally outside Evin Prison in June 2003. She was arrested and 18 days later, the Regime reported that she’d died of a stroke.

Evidence actually showed that she had been brutally beaten and raped and it sent a message to journalists and protesters. It also distracted from the protests.

Mohsen Ruholamini, Mohammad Kamrani and Amir Javadifar were all arrested during the 2009 uprising on July 9. Within one week, all three were dead apparently from suicides.

Their deaths diverted attention away from the protests and sent a message to the protesters.

Hoda Rezazadeh Saber, a journalist, went on hunger strike in 2011 to protest the suspicious death of activist Hale Sahabi at her father’s funeral. She died nine days later, reportedly of a heart disorder.

Again, her death distracted the public from the issue of the Sahabis.

Sattar Beheshti, a blogger, was arrested in 2012 on bogus charges of threatening national security through Facebook. He died four days later.

The Regime sent his family through a variety of increasingly complicated court cases in order to muddy the waters and hide the fact that Beheshti was murdered under torture.

Sina Ghanbari, a protester during the 2017-18 uprising, reportedly hanged himself just days after his arrest, but the Regime could not produce evidence to support this story despite claiming that the could.

The Regime wanted to divert attention from the protests and the Iranian people’s demands for regime change.

Kavous Seyed Emami, an Iranian-Canadian environmental activist and sociology professor, was arrested for espionage under the cover of wildlife conservation. He died just two weeks later.

The Canadian government has demanded an explanation but have so far been ignored and it is believed that he was murdered with a high dosage of sodium thiopental in Evin Prison.

This shows a clear pattern from the Iranian Regime and deaths in custody should always set off major alarms bells. Unfortunately, there is no reason to suspect that we will not hear of more “suicides” in the future, thus the international community should increase pressure on Iran to release political prisoners and throw its support behind the people’s call for regime change.