Iran: Call for Investigation Into the Death in Homayunshahr Prison of a Protester Detained in 2018
Mehdi Salehi Dies Under Suspicious Circumstances While Being Denied Medical Care
On Thursday, April 14, 2022, Mehdi Salehi, a 36-year-old political prisoner from Yazdanshahr, arrested during the January 2018 uprising, died under suspicious circumstances in Homayunshahr Prison in Isfahan. Mehdi died of severe pressure from being deprived of medical care. His body was buried this morning in Yazdanshahr as security forces watched. The repressive forces prevented his family from holding a funeral.
Due to injecting the wrong medicine and delay in taking him to hospital, Mehdi suffered a brain stroke and was in a coma for several days in December 2021. He was one of the brave and beloved youth in Yazdanshahr. He was arrested during the January 2018 uprising, while assisting one of his friends, who had been shot. Mehdi, along with four other detained protesters, was sentenced to death in February 2020 by the Second Branch of Isfahan’s Revolutionary Court after being charged with Moharebeh (enmity against God).
The Iranian regime routinely tortures prisoners, especially political prisoners, by depriving them of medical care, which has resulted in the death of victims since the 2018 uprising.
The Iranian Resistance strongly condemns this heinous crime and urges the United Nations Secretary-General, the UN high commissioner for human rights, the UN Human Rights Council, and the relevant UN rapporteurs to form an international inquiry mission to investigate the death of political prisoner Mehdi Salehi and other prisoners tortured to death or suspiciously murdered by the clerical regime. The case of brutal and systematic human rights violations in Iran must be referred to the UN Security Council, and the regime’s leaders, especially Khamenei, Ebrahim Raisi, and Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Eje’i, the regime’s chief Judiciary, must be brought to justice for four decades of crimes against humanity and genocide.
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI)
April 15, 2022