The Amnesty International has expressed concern over the health condition of political prisoner Soheil Arabi who has been on hunger strike for 38 days. This organization demanded the immediate and unconditional release of the political prisoner as well as his access to full medical care, Iran Focus reports.
The Iranian Resistance is also calling on all other international human rights advocates to take action to save Arabi’s life and obtain his freedom so that he can visit a doctor.
Arabi started his dry hunger strike (meaning that he is also refusing liquids) because of his treatment at the hands of the Iranian Regime’s agents 9 days ago and he had been already on hunger strike for 30 days. On the 8th day of his dry hunger strike, Soheil Arabi recorded an audio file in Evin Prison and explained his critical condition announcing that the authorities have not paid attention to his legal demands.
“Never allow a person to torture you because of holding different beliefs… I have spent days and nights with the hope that the judges and interrogators have good conscience. If they have had so, I would have been acquitted by now and the real offenders and criminals would have been in jail as well…I cannot tolerate all this cruelty. I am tired of fighting alone. Nobody helps me. I will die one day. I am sure that the oppressors will be defeated. You will believe that my imprisonment was unfair. I am in a cage and cannot work, therefore, I am dead. A day comes that the judges and interrogators will be tried and our country is no longer in the hands of hypocrites,” he says in his audio file.
Soheil Arabi, who has one young daughter, was arrested by the Regime’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) in 2013, for publishing photos of the 2009 uprising, cartoons of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, and articles about the Iranian Regime and sentenced to death penalty in Tehran’s Penal Court Branch 76 in September 2014 on charges of insulting the sanctities and the Muslim’s prophet on Facebook.
He was tortured in the prison’s solitary confinement ward. The Supreme Court of Justice also confirmed the verdict in December of that year. Then, after an international outcry, Iran’s Supreme Court commuted his sentence to 7.5 years in prison and an additional three years in prison and 30 lashes for insulting regime leaders and he’s banned from traveling abroad for 2 years.
On September 28, he wrote to his wife and daughter, telling them goodbye.
“So long, life… My dear Nastaran, believe me that I did what I could to build a new life, but… Please tell Rojana that her father was jailed because of his ideas. I loved you both and now that I am writing my will, I have no wealth to leave to you. Please forgive me that I am leaving you alone. But I’ve been in prison for 1,388 days and the last eight days have been intolerable.”
However, the mullahs’ inquisition court is also forcing him to do two years of religious investigation, which includes reading the mullahs’ absurd ‘religious’ writings and write a summary of it. According to this ruling, he should submit a written response to his doubts to the court, write a paper using five religious books, and submit his research report to the court every three months for two years. The death penalty will be removed after proving his regret to the court and changing his behaviour.