By Kevin Kim
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East
TEHRAN, Iran – A “sudden death” of a Kurdish law student while in custody in northwestern Iran has raised suspicion among his family and human rights activists regarding the truth of the official report. Officials told the student’s family that he had committed suicide while in prison and died of “suffocation.”
Intelligence Ministry agents arrested Ebrahim Lotfollahi, a political activist in the student movement of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, in front of Payame Nur University in Sanandaj on January 6. He had just finished taking an exam when the officials took him away without charge. Two days after the arrest, Lotfollahi was reportely in good condition when his family visited him, and he remained optimistic that he would be released soon. But on January 15, his parents were told that he was dead. Moreover, when family members went to the city cemetery, they were informed that the 27-year-old had already been buried and that they were not allowed to see his body. A few days after, the officials covered the grave with concrete.
Rights activists say that this case is similar to that of another recent death case which occurred in the town of Hamedan in October. In that case, a 27-year-old female physician Zahra Bani Yaghoub and her boyfriend were arrested for having an “illegal relationship.” Relationships between men and women who are not married are against the law in Iran. On the following day, officials told her family that she had committed suicide in her cell.
Following the two alleged prison suicides, Middle East deputy director at Human Rights Watch said “The sudden death in detention of two apparently healthy young people is extremely alarming. The government only heightens our concern by quickly dismissing them as suicides.” Consequently, Lotfollahi’s family wants the body exhumed for examination by doctors, including one chosen by the family. Bani Yaghub’s family has also called for an autopsy in her case.
United Nations Principles on the Effective Prevention and Investigation of Extra Legal, Arbitrary and Summary Executions provide that families of the deceased and their legal representatives have the right to exhume body for an autopsy in all cases suspected of unlawful killing, including where the cause suggests unnatural death.
For more information, please see:
Workers’ Liberty – Iranian regime murders student activist – 25 January 2008
Reuters – Family wants Iran student who died in jail exhumed – 20 January 2008
Human Rights Watch – Investigate Detention Deaths – 18 January 2008
AKI – Death of Kurdish student was “suicide” says official – 18 January 2008
RadioFreeEurope – Detained student dies under ‘suspicious’ circumstances – 18 January 2008
