Posted on 08/05/2005 5:50:13 PM PDT by F14 Pilot
SMUGGLED photographs of Akbar Ganji, Iran’s most famous political prisoner, show him ghostly white and gaunt with sunken eyes. He is close to death after 56 days of a hunger strike. Mr Ganji was rushed from the Evin prison in Tehran to Milad Hospital last week as his health deteriorated. Massoumeh Shafiie, his wife, said doctors have tried to feed him intravenously but he has pulled out the feeding tubes.
Mr Ganji, an investigative journalist, was jailed for six years in 2000 on charges of “acting against national security”. Some charges related to an article he wrote linking some of the country’s top officials to the 1998 murder of dissident intellectuals.
He was temporarily released in May for medical treatment, when he came to the end of a 43-day hunger strike. Since returning to prison in June, he has resumed his hunger strike.
International pressure to free him is growing, with eight Nobel laureates and a number of human rights groups demanding his unconditional release.
Reporters Without Borders, a pressure group, said: “If the international community does not react, Ganji is going to die.” His situation has elicited outrage from President Bush, and the US State Department issued four statements on his case last month.
Mr Ganji has also gained high-profile support in Iran. Demands for his release have come from two former presidents, the outgoing reformist Mohammad Khatami and Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, under whose presidency Mr Ganji wrote about the killings.
This week a judge who presided over his case was assassinated by a gunman. One of his legal team was arrested last week on charges of disclosing classified information on the trial of ten Iranians charged with spying for the US and Israel.
Iran’s judiciary refuses to consider a release unless Mr Ganji requests it personally. Jamal Karimi, a judiciary spokesman, said: “So far, I have not heard that he or his lawyers have filed such a request.”
Mr Ganji has become a thorn in the side of the Islamic Republic. Prison has failed to stifle his attacks against Iran’s clerical regime; his letters have been smuggled out of prison and posted on the internet. He has called into question the authority of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader, and demanded his resignation.
He has gained a cult status among many young Iranians. There are frequent demonstrations outside Tehran University and, at the most recent, police beat protesters with batons. Candlelit vigils have been held outside his home.
They are showing their true colors. They'll show their support when it doesn't help Bush or when it helps their own agenda.
The libs have done a good job of covering up what the United States is up against and what these battles are about. I have come to the sad conclusion, a long, long time ago, that it is not what the left doesn't support (truth) that should worry you, it is what they do support that should worry you.
He will dir in that prison, just like the Canadian citizen di a year or so ago. These people have no nonor or mercy.
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