Boroujerdi: The family of Seyed Emami has accepted his suicide and has not requested an autopsy

While the lawyer for Seyed Emami's family tells Radio Farda that forensic medicine has not yet announced the cause of death of Kavous Seyed Emami despite the autopsy, the head of the National Security Commission of the Parliament claims that Mr. Seyed Emami's family has accepted this incident and has not requested an autopsy. Meanwhile, Ali Motahari, the Deputy Speaker of Parliament, who on Tuesday, February 12, along with several other representatives, discussed the death of Mr. Seyed Emami in prison in a meeting attended by 'IRGC intelligence experts', says that the explanations provided are 'insufficient' and that 'the Parliament is waiting to complete its information on this matter.' The death of Kavous Seyed Emami, a sociology professor and environmental activist, which was revealed by his son about two weeks after his arrest, has sparked many reactions, including among Iranian parliamentarians. Ramin Seyed Emami, the son of this university professor, wrote on his Twitter account on Saturday that the family of Mr. Seyed Emami has been informed that this university professor, who was arrested on January 24, has died in prison, and the cause of his death has been declared 'suicide.' Later, the Tehran prosecutor announced that Kavous Seyed Emami was one of the environmental activists whose arrest he had reported on Saturday, and stated that both Mr. Seyed Emami and others had made confessions against him that led to his 'suicide.' On Tuesday, however, it was announced that 'IRGC intelligence experts', the agency that had detained Mr. Seyed Emami, presented a video in Parliament that allegedly shows this university professor engaging in actions indicating his possible intention to 'commit suicide.' According to Ali Motahari, the Deputy Speaker of the Iranian Parliament, the duration of this video is seven to eight minutes, but 'the moment of suicide is not evident.' Mr. Motahari did not refer to the details of the 'actions' recorded in this short video, but Aladdin Boroujerdi, the head of the Parliament's National Security Committee, claims that the video 'shows that Kavous Seyed Emami is taking off his shirt and preparing to commit suicide.' However, while Ali Motahari has described the explanations provided regarding Mr. Seyed Emami's death as 'insufficient', Mr. Boroujerdi claims that 'his family has also accepted this incident, so they did not request an autopsy.' Nevertheless, Payam Darvishan, the lawyer for Seyed Emami's family, tells Radio Farda that 'the investigations are incomplete, the issues are unclear, and even the examination report of the body, which in cases of suspicious deaths and suicides indicates the cause of death, has not yet been issued by forensic medicine.' He states that the examination report must first be issued and the cause of death explicitly stated before further steps can be taken. The lawyer for Seyed Emami's family also mentions that 'forensic medicine conducts autopsies in all cases and takes necessary tissues and extracts blood samples, and after the autopsy, returns the body to the deceased's family and continues its work.' He emphasizes that forensic medicine has conducted an autopsy on Mr. Seyed Emami but has not yet issued the examination report, which typically takes about a month. Mr. Darvishan states that he, along with Seyed Emami's children, has fully viewed the video shown to Parliament members, but they must wait for the examination report to express an opinion. He also notes that since Kavous Seyed Emami was a sociologist in the field of religion, he considers the act of suicide to be in contradiction with his 'ideology.' The death of Mr. Seyed Emami, who also holds Canadian citizenship, is not the only case of death among detainees in recent months, as human rights activists reported the deaths of three to five detainees in prisons during the mass protests in January. In this regard, judicial authorities have only confirmed the deaths of two detainees but claim that both cases were 'suicides.' On Tuesday, however, the ILNA news agency reported, citing a member of Parliament, that more than 40 Iranian parliamentarians have issued a written notice to the Ministers of Intelligence and Justice in Hassan Rouhani's cabinet, demanding an investigation into the deaths of several detainees in prisons over the past two months. According to Qasem Mirzaei Nekouei, the signatories of this letter, referring to 'the death of Kavous Seyed Emami in prison' and 'the deaths of some individuals in various prisons across the country,' have called for 'special attention' to the rights of prisoners, based on Articles 32 and 39 of the Constitution. This letter describes the recent death of Mr. Seyed Emami as a cause of 'public concern' and 'exploitation by enemies' and demands that the Ministers of Justice and Intelligence 'transparently respond to the community and Parliament regarding the cause of his death and other similar cases in various prisons across the country.' Previously, after reports of the suspicious deaths of some detainees during recent protests, some members of Parliament called for the formation of a fact-finding committee regarding the deaths of detainees, although this request has not yet yielded results. In response to the death of Kavous Seyed Emami in prison, on Sunday, four scientific associations in Iran issued an open letter requesting President Hassan Rouhani to hold the responsible institutions accountable for Mr. Seyed Emami's death. Earlier, the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran held the judiciary responsible for Mr. Seyed Emami's death and called for a UN investigation into suspicious deaths in Iranian prisons.