Vahid Sayadi's Sister: They Told Us Not to Speak Against the Regime at the Mourning Ceremony

The sister of Vahid Sayadi Nasiri, a political and ideological prisoner in Langaroud prison in Qom who died on Wednesday due to a hunger strike, rejected the prosecutor's claim that her brother's death was due to 'liver disease.' Mehdi Kahe, the prosecutor of Qom, stated on Thursday, December 22, that this prisoner had deteriorated due to 'liver disease' and died after 'seven days of hospitalization.' In response to this claim, Elahe Sayadi Nasiri told Radio Farda, 'I heard that too. No, that was not the case. It was due to the hunger strike. His stomach had dried up, he was bleeding. The week before, he was hospitalized because of stomach bleeding. Then he was transferred back to prison. The night before last, when his condition worsened, he was hospitalized for a few hours.' She attributed her brother's death to 'hunger strike,' 'stomach bleeding,' and 'rejection of intestines and liver,' stating that this limited information was provided to them by the forensic medicine of the hospital. Ms. Sayadi stated, 'Today we went to the forensic medicine of Shahid Beheshti Hospital and received the corpse. Then we took it to Behesht-e Masoumeh to go for the funeral and burial tomorrow morning.' She added, 'My son and my brother managed to see (Vahid's) corpse. He was very bony and nothing was left of him. When my brother who saw the corpse returned home, he had no strength to speak.' Regarding the mourning ceremony for her brother, she said that the family was informed not to 'create chaos, not to speak against the regime, not to make noise, and there should be no noise against the regime.' Ms. Sayadi Nasiri had previously stated that her brother had gone on a hunger strike in protest against his conditions in Qom prison and his request to be transferred to Evin prison. Vahid Sayadi was first arrested in September 2015. His charges included 'insulting sacred values, insulting the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and propaganda against the regime,' which mainly stemmed from his activities on social media, especially Facebook. Vahid Sayadi, who was sentenced to a total of eight years in prison in the first trial, was released from Rajai Shahr prison in Karaj in April this year after serving two and a half years due to Nowruz amnesty. The freedom of this political and ideological prisoner lasted only a few months, and in August this year, the intelligence office of Qom once again arrested him.