The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, a joint programme of the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) and the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), requests your urgent intervention in the following situation in Iran.

New information:

The Observatory has been informed by the Iranian League for the Defense of Human Rights (Ligue pour la defense des droits de l'Homme en Iran - LDDHI) that Mr. Akbar Ganji, a prominent journalist and human rights defender who has been imprisoned for more than five years in Tehran's Evin prison, begun an unlimited hunger strike at 7 pm on May 19, 2005 in order to protest against his imprisonment. As of the date of the release of this appeal, his hunger strike continues.

According to the information received, Mr. Akbar Ganji suffers from asthma and serious back problems for which he needs to be immediately hospitalised. However, in detention, Mr. Ganji does not have access to adequate treatment. His lawyers, including Mrs. Shirin Ebadi, 2003 Nobel Peace Prize and Secretary general of the Defenders of Human Rights Centre, have been asking for several months that he be hospitalised.

Moreover, it is important to note that under the Iranian Criminal Procedure Code, after a prisoner has served two thirds of his or her sentence, he or she can be released on parole. Since one year, while Mr. Ganji completed the non parole period of his sentence, his lawyers have been requesting that he be released on parole, in vain.

Background information:

Mr. Akbar Ganji, of the daily newspaper Sobh-e-Emrooz, was arrested on April 22, 2000 for having written several articles suggesting the involvement of the Iranian regime, including former President Hashemi Rafsanjani and former Intelligence Minister Ali Fallahian, in the assassination of dissident opponents and intellectuals in late 1998. Mr. Ganji was also arrested because he took part in a conference in Berlin on the Iranian legislative elections and democratic reforms in April 1998. In July 2001, he was sentenced to six years of imprisonment on the charge of "threatening national security and propaganda against the institutions of the Islamic State" (See Observatory Annual Report 2004).

Mr. Akbar Ganji is currently being held in solitary confinement in spite of the specific recommandation made on June 27, 2003, by the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention to the Islamic Republic of Iran to put an end to this widespread practice which it considered as arbitrary in nature (See the UN document E/CN4/2004/3/Add.2, paragraphs 4 and 5).

Action requested:

Please refer to the "Action requested" of the No.3719.

Addresses:

Please refer to the "Action requested" of the No.3719.

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Paris - Geneva, May 24, 2005