(WiPC/IFEX) – The WiPC of International PEN is seriously concerned for the health of writers Hojjatoleslam Hasan Yousefi Eshkevari and Akbar Ganji, who are both reported to be seriously ill in Evin prison. Eshkevari is an insulin-dependent diabetic and has reportedly suffered an eye haemorrhage in prison as a result of the disease. He is […]
(WiPC/IFEX) – The WiPC of International PEN is seriously concerned for the health of writers Hojjatoleslam Hasan Yousefi Eshkevari and Akbar Ganji, who are both reported to be seriously ill in Evin prison. Eshkevari is an insulin-dependent diabetic and has reportedly suffered an eye haemorrhage in prison as a result of the disease. He is said to be at risk of losing the sight of his right eye. Ganji is said to have been ill-treated in prison, and has been in poor health for some time.
Eshkevari, director of the Ali Shariati Research Centre and contributing editor of the now-banned newspaper “Iran-e Farda”, and writer and journalist Ganji were both arrested following their participation in an academic and cultural conference held in Berlin from 7 to 9 April 2000, entitled “Iran after the elections”, at which political and social reform in Iran were publicly debated.
Eshkevari, aged 54, is serving a seven-year prison sentence for a speech he made at the conference. He will be entitled to “conditional release” in January 2005. In October 2003, the Special Court for Clerics reportedly agreed to give him five days leave from prison per month for medical treatment. He is being held at the Special Court for Clerics ward of Evin prison.
Ganji is serving a six-year sentence on charges of “collecting confidential information harmful to national security” and “spreading propaganda against the Islamic system” in connection with newspaper articles he has written. He was originally sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment plus five years’ internal exile for his attendance at the Berlin conference and a series of articles he had written implicating leading figures in the murders of several dissidents and intellectuals in the late 1990’s.
On 15 May 2001, an appeal court reduced his 10-year sentence to six months and overturned his additional sentence of five years’ internal exile. However, although he had served the entire sentence, the Tehran judiciary challenged the appeal court decision and brought new charges against him in connection with newspaper articles he wrote prior to April 2000. On 16 July 2001, Ganji was sentenced to six years’ imprisonment. There are said to be several other cases pending against him for his writing.
Ganji’s publications include the best-selling book “Dungeon of Ghosts”, a collection of his newspaper articles published in early 2000, in which he implicated former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and other leading conservative figures in the “serial murders” of 1998. The book is said to have seriously damaged Rafsanjani’s reputation, and is thought to have been a major factor in the conservative defeat in the parliamentary elections of February 2000.
