OMCT - - Iran: Arbitrary detention and hunger strike of Mr. Akbar Ganji

OMCT - - EN: "URGENT APPEAL THE OBSERVATORY

IRN 001 / 0004 / 030.5
New information
Arbitrary detention / Hunger strike
Iran
June 24, 2005


The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, a joint programme of the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) and the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), requests your urgent intervention in the following situation in Iran.


New information:

The Observatory has been informed by the Iranian League for the Defense of Human Rights (Ligue pour la d�fense des droits de l�Homme en Iran - LDDHI) that Mr. Akbar Ganji, a prominent journalist and human rights defender who has been imprisoned for more than five years in Tehran�s Evin prison, started a new hunger strike.

According to the information received, on June 14, 2005, a week after Mr. Akbar Ganji was temporarily released on May 30, 2005, so that he may receive medical treatment, his house was searched on order of Mr. Mortazavi, Prosecutor of Tehran, in order to arrest him. On the following day, on June 15, 2005, Mr. Akbar Ganji presented himself to jail. On June 16, 2005, he started a hunger strike and he is currently held in solitary confinement.

Moreover, his lawyer, Mrs. Shirin Ebadi, 2003 Nobel Peace Prize and Secretary General of the Defenders of Human Rights Centre, was not authorised to visit him on June 21, 2005, and she expressed her worry regarding Mr. Ganji�s health and life."