IRAN: Jailed opposition member dies from hunger strike as small protests crushed on 2nd anniversary of uprising
Two years to the day after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won a highly disputed election victory amid allegations of fraud, sparking a months-long uprising, small gatherings of possible protesters were easily dispersed in central Tehran on Sunday.
A witness spotted a police van with three young men detained inside on Vali Asr Street. But there were no other signs of protest or slogans chanted. Vast phalanxes of uniformed policemen and plainclothes regime agents as well as soldiers stood guard.
Meanwhile, an imprisoned opposition figure Reza Hoda Saber who went on a hunger strike on June 2, died of a heart attack on Sunday, reported Iranian opposition website Kaleme.
"Security forces transferred him from Evin prison to Modarres hospital due to cardiac complication induced by his hunger strike," the website said. "But the damage of the cardiac complication was too severe."
The journalist was arrested numerous times during the reign of the reformist Iranian President Mohammad Khatami. After the disputed 2009 elections, Saber was sentenced to 10 years in prison, the opposition website reported.
Saber went on a hunger strike to protest the death of fellow activist Haleh Sahabi. Sahabi died of a heart attack, allegedly brought on by a clash with anti-riot police during the funeral of her father, Ezatollah Sahabi, prominent opposition figure and leader of a small movement Saber was part of.
According to Mohammad Sharif, Saber's defense lawyer, Saber had been complaining of chest pains hours before he was taken to the hospital.
"Today at noon his family and I heard the news of the death," said Sharif, in front of the forensic doctor's office to receive Saber's body.
Saber was one of three people who were charged for "measures against the national security," and "taking part in illegal association to plot against the system," explained Sharif.
ALSO:
Iranian dissident's family suffers double tragedy
Human rights lawyer's appeal hearing postponed
Freed American hiker fasts for two men still in Iran
-- Ramin Mostaghim in Tehran and Roula Hajjar in Beirut
Photo: Reza Hoda Saber. Credit: Facebook
Shalom & Boker tov...'hunger strike' ... or murdered? While the republicanazis and their bedpartners, the Democants, hold each other's pillows, worrying about sex-less escapades at Twitter...we have a protonazi state Iran rushing toward building nuclear weapons to vaporize my people in Yisro'el. The weapons -- which I am sure will not be used for fireworks -- are eliminationist tools. We bomb Libya, while Syria slaughters. We whine about debts (thousands of elderly die each day from lack of health care, while politicians and physicians manipulate stock portfolios and golf scores), while Iran's gestapo slaughters. It is for these reasons, I am not (and millions of others likely will not) vote for Obama et al., including the Tea Fascist Movement. The discussion of truths stops prudently short with these short-circuiting cyborgs before their parallelism becomes close enough to yield logical and probable conclusions. Perhaps Steve Spielberg (serious ideas are lacking in his films, because they do not occur to him) could make a 3D commercial?
STEPHAN PICKERING / Chofetz Chayim ben-Avraham
Posted by: Stephan Pickering/Chofetz Chayim ben-Avraham | June 13, 2011 at 11:26 AM
Opposition members in Iran seem to have a lot of heart attacks.
Posted by: rescue8 | June 13, 2011 at 11:20 AM
Very sad...
Posted by: Lindy | June 13, 2011 at 07:47 AM
Reminds me of Orlando Zapata Tamayo, who died a year ago from a hunger strike in protest of Cuba's dictatorship. Iranian and Cuban governments are evil and their eradication will make a better world.
Posted by: Electra Garrigo | June 12, 2011 at 08:30 PM
This man gave everything to fight oppression. Yo, "Hugh," Summer Break is young; don't get put in time-out so soon.
Posted by: 125813 | June 12, 2011 at 07:30 PM
A lot of good that did him.
Posted by: cineski | June 12, 2011 at 07:15 PM
Rekshin, you are a heartless jerk.
Posted by: LAres | June 12, 2011 at 06:20 PM
He starved himself? Serves him right.
Posted by: Hugh G. Rekshin | June 12, 2011 at 12:52 PM