IRAN: GANJI, IMPRISONED JOURNALIST NEARS DEATH

IRAN: IMPRISONED JOURNALIST NEARS DEATH: "Tehran, 4 July (AKI) - The well-known Iranian writer and journalist Akbar Ganji, who has been in prison for more than four years, is in a critical condition after being on a hunger strike for the past 23 days. His wife, who met him in an Iranian jail, confirmed that the renowned dissident's life was in danger. 'My husband, before beginning the hunger strike weighed 77 kilograms, but today his weight has fallen to 58 kilograms and he can no longer stand on his feet,' Massoumeh Shafii, said in an interview with Adnkronos International (AKI).

Shafii told AKI that her husband was in solitary confinement and that he was kept in isolation even during the period of open-air time allocated to prisoners. In the last letter that Ganji succeeded in releasing from prison, the journalist indicated that the spiritual leader of Iran, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, was the �mastermind of the operation' behind his physical annihilation.

In the letter, Ganji also accused Tehran's chief prosecutor, Saiid Mortazavi, of 'being the material executor of this diabolical plan.'. Human rights activists suspect Mortazavi was behind the death Zahra Kazemi, a Canadian journalist of Iranian origin who was killed while in custody in an Iranian jail.

Ganji, who in the past published articles allegedly exposing the involvement of government officials in the murder of intellectuals and journalists in the 1990s was jailed in April 2000, charged with 'acting against national security.' Ganji, who has already served 62 months in prison, suffers from acute asthma and is being held in solitary confinement at Tehran's Evin prison.

In his letter, the journalist said that in order to achieve justice, he had to take it upon himself to do something about the sit"