VOA — Javad Soudbar, a civil rights activist detained in Tabriz, Iran, on Friday neared the two-week mark of his hunger strike. His family has not been informed about his well-being, raising significant concerns about his health.
Soudbar announced his hunger strike on December 9 during a phone call from the Tabriz Intelligence Detention Center. Since then, he has not communicated with his wife, Elham Habibi, or other family members. He launched the hunger strike “to protest the nondetermination of his case,” according to his wife.
The Association for the Defense of Azerbaijani Political Prisoners in Iran (ADAPP) issued a statement on December 11 saying that individuals released from the Tabriz center shared details about the torture inflicted on Soudbar, Ali Babaei, Yourosh Mehr-Ali Biglou and Davood Shiri.
The association strongly condemned the torture of the civil rights activists, citing accounts from their close associates. The association said Babaei and Soudbar had been injured during torture and that Mehr-Ali Biglou continues to endure daily beatings.
The individuals released from the Tabriz center reported witnessing the “effects of cable and electric shock” on Shiri’s body.
As of now, there has been no response from the Iran Ministry of Intelligence to the statement. However, various political, professional and civil activists, along with human rights organizations, have consistently highlighted cases of both physical and psychological torture within prisons and detention centers under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Intelligence or the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Babaei and Soudbar were apprehended by security forces in Tabriz on September 13. They were detained together in the Tabriz center under ambiguous circumstances, and their detentions have been extended, the Human Rights Activists News Agency has reported.
HRANA’s undisclosed source said Soudbar previously had intended to initiate a hunger strike if his case remained unaddressed and that he has been denied the right to have representation by a designated lawyer.
Meanwhile, Tatar Mehr-Ali Biglou, the son of activist Yourosh Mehr-Ali Biglou, acknowledged the detention of several other rights activists, including Milad Jalili and Salar Taher Afshar.
“We receive no response from any judicial authority regarding the circumstances of my father and other national activists,” Tatar Mehr-Ali Biglou said in a video released by ADAPP.