Iran International
From behind bars, Iranian rapper and one of the country's most prominent activists Toomaj Salehi pleaded with fellow dissident Hossein Ronaghi to end a hunger strike and not risk death.
Ronaghi, who has frequently been jailed for his criticism of the Iran's ruling system, began his fast from solid foods by sewing his lips shut on Sunday. He pledged to continue until the demands of late journalist and close personal friend Kianoosh Sanjari to free several political prisoners were met.
Sanjari committed suicide last week after warning he would take his own life unless several prisoners, including Salehi, were released. Activists including Ronaghi have blamed the Islamic Republic for Sanjari's death.
“Hossein, please break your strike. For the sake of all of us, break your strike,” Salehi said in a social media post from Dastgerd prison in the central Iranian city of Isfahan late on Wednesday. Detainees in Iran frequently pass messages to confidants who publish them on social media.
Salehi, a prominent voice in Iran’s protest movement, was arrested in October 2022 during the Woman, Life, Freedom uprising after expressing support in his music. Initially sentenced to death on charges of “corruption on Earth,” his sentence was overturned by Iran’s Supreme Court in June yet he remains imprisoned.
“After Kianoosh, I can no longer bear even a scratch on a member of this family. Hossein, please break your strike,” Salehi added in his message on Wednesday, in an apparent reference to the dissident community.
However Ronaghi vowed to persist in pursuit of Sanjari’s demands.
"My decision is this: I will continue with my lips sewn shut until Kianoosh's wishes are fulfilled," Ronaghi wrote on social media Thursday. He had previously reported feeling weaker and that he was imbibing only water, tea and medicine.
"My action with sewn lips is a political protest, and the responsibility for it, whether I am in prison, whether I am out of prison, whether you lock me in at home and prevent the sit-in, is with the Islamic Republic," he added.
Ronaghi later said that he was barred from continuing with his sit-in at Charsou - the site of Sanjari’s suicide in Tehran and described escalating harassment by authorities.
“I now face new forms of restrictions and imprisonment,” he said. “I am constantly monitored, both visibly and covertly, by security forces. They block my movements or detain me in undisclosed locations. It feels as though a prison has been built on this side of the bars.”
Earlier this week Ronaghi said security forces abused him sexually and verbally when he was arrested for a few hours in Tehran on Monday following another sit-in.
Despite these challenges, Ronaghi has planned another sit-in on Friday in Ekbatan, a neighborhood in western Tehran where security forces have been accused of coercing protesters into false confessions.
Last week Iran's judiciary issued death sentences for six individuals accused of involvement in the killing of a Basij militia member during the nationwide protests that erupted in 2022 in what has come to be known as the Ekbatan case.
His sit-in is also due to honor Aida Rostami, an Iranian doctor who treated protesters in Ekbatan and died under unexplained circumstances with state security forces widely blamed by activists for her death.
Rostami, 36, was caring for injured protesters during the Woman, Life, Freedom protests when she disappeared. Her body was returned to her family a day later showing signs of physical abuse according to her family, which says she was tortured to death.
“On Friday, November 22, I will conduct a sit-in at the Ekbatan Complex in honor of the dedicated doctor, Aida Rostami, and for the 'children of Ekbatan' who have endured two years of suffering imposed on them and their families," Ronaghi said Thursday night in a post on social media.
"In the place where you tried to destroy the environment to strip these people of their spirit for life, I will be present,” Ronaghi added. “Kianoosh's path will continue, even if I am left with no strength or if I am no longer here. Do whatever you wish."
