Member of Parliament: Suicide of Two Protesters in Prison Confirmed

A member of parliament reported that the head of forensic medicine has confirmed reports of the 'suicide' of two protesters in prison. Ahmad Hemmati, a member of the Health Commission of the Parliament, stated in an interview with ILNA news agency on Wednesday, February 7, that the head of the forensic organization announced in a meeting with members of this commission that two of the detainees from recent protests had 'committed suicide.' According to Mr. Hemmati, forensic medicine reviewed 7 to 10 hours of footage from the scene of the deaths of these prisoners and concluded that they had committed suicide. This member of parliament did not mention the names of the two protesters who, according to him, 'committed suicide' based on the report from the head of the forensic organization. Several visiting representatives from Evin Prison on February 1 had stated that a 'suicide video' of Sina Ghambari was shown to them. However, afterwards, Alireza Rahimi, one of the visiting representatives from Evin Prison, stated that this video does not contain scenes of suicide. According to Mr. Rahimi, in the footage shown to the representatives, on January 6, at 3 AM, a person identified as Sina Ghambari, holding a long, twisted black plastic bag in his right hand, enters one of the restrooms. After that, 'a very long time is recorded without any event or movement until about two hours later, when one of the prisoners enters directly into the same restroom that Sina went into and is confronted with the scene of a body lying on the ground and returns in a state of shock and disbelief.' The committee investigating the arrests of December 2017 had previously reported, citing two 'eyewitnesses,' that Sina Ghambari had been interrogated two days before his death and 'after being arrested, he told his cellmates that they had done a house cleaning (beaten him) to the extent that some parts of his body were severely bruised.' Vahid Heydari was another young man who was arrested following recent protests in various cities in Iran, and after a while, his corpse was handed over to his family. Iranian officials declared the cause of his death as 'suicide.' However, the Iran Human Rights Campaign reported, citing relatives of Vahid Heydari, that when they saw his body, there were signs of beating and bruising on his head. Ali Bagheri, a civil activist in Shazand Arak who spoke closely with Vahid Heydari's relatives, told Radio Farda that his family had been 'threatened.' Mohammad Najafi, a lawyer in Shazand Arak who was pursuing Vahid Heydari's case, has been detained since January 14 and remains imprisoned. In addition to the ambiguous deaths of Sina Ghambari and Vahid Heydari, reports have emerged regarding the deaths of Shahab Abtahi-Zadeh in Arak, Mohsen Adeli in Dezful, Saro Ghahramani, and Kianoush Zandi in Sanandaj, but Iranian officials have denied any connection between their deaths and these protests. Alireza Rahimi, a representative from Tehran in the Parliament, stated last week that 'five thousand people' had been arrested during the protests in Iranian cities, and 'still 500 people' are in detention. Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi, the Tehran prosecutor, also stated on February 4 in a meeting with Tehran's deputy prosecutors that 150 indictments had been issued for 'the accused' of the December protests, and 'four people' are still in detention.