Two Activists Taken Back From Hospital To Prison

Iranian political prisoner and member of Iran’s Teachers’ Trade Association, Esmail Abdi, was taken back to Tehran’s notorious Evin prison, the trade union for Iranian educators reported on its Telegram channel.

After more than thirty consecutive days of hunger strike, Abdi was admitted to the hospital for special medical exams on June 3.

Iran’s Teachers’ Trade Association, ITTA, in its report, does not say whether Abdi is still on hunger strike or not.

In an exclusive interview with Radio Farda on June 4, the activist’s wife, Monir, said: “Abdi’s health condition is not good at all. He is in a poor physical condition and feeling very weak. He has also lost weight a lot of weight. They have medically examined him, but our request is to take Abdi to an ordinary ward of the hospital to continue his hunger strike there.”

Abdi is accused of “Propaganda against the Islamic Republic” and “assembly, intended to disrupt public order.” He was sentenced to 10 years in prison in a preliminary court, but a higher court reduced the term to six years.

In protest to the procedure of his trial as well as the security approach toward labor and union activists, Abdi went on hunger strike on April 30.

Meanwhile, Narges Mohammadi, vice president and spokeswoman for the Defenders of Human Rights Center (DHRC), has been taken back to Evin Prison, on June 4, two days after undergoing an operation for severe uterine bleeding in a hospital.

There’s no official report on the outcome of the operation or Mohammadi’s physical condition after leaving the hospital. .

Mohammadi also suffered from a pulmonary embolism and muscle paralysis.

In 2011, Mohammadi was sentenced to six years in prison for propaganda against the system, assembly, and collusion against national security; but was released in 2013 on medical furlough.

“She was arrested again in May 2015 for her continued peaceful activism, notably after meeting the [then] European Union’s foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton at the Austrian Embassy in Tehran in September 2014,” reported the Center for Human Rights in Iran.

Mohammadi is also sentenced to 10 years of imprisonment for launching a campaign called LEGAM, the Persian acronym for a campaign to abolish the death penalty. Her appeal has been rejected