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Journalist Tahereh Riahi Sustains Injury in Evin

February 1, 2017
IranWire
3 min read
Journalist Tahereh Riahi Sustains Injury in Evin

IranWire has learned that jailed journalist Tahereh Riahi has suffered serious damage to her left eye while in Evin Prison, and that she may be in danger of losing sight in the eye completely. An anonymous source told IranWire that another prisoner in Evin overheard Riahi accusing one of her interrogators of damaging her eye. 

Riahi was arrested on December 27,2016. A source told IranWire that the cornea of Riahi’s left eye has been damaged during her stay in Ward 209, which is run by the Iranian Intelligence Ministry and is reserved mainly for political prisoners. According to our source, Riahi’s condition could be the reason why the ministry refuses to release her on bail, as it may fear bad publicity.

Tahereh Riahi is the social affairs editor of Borna News Agency, affiliated with Iran’s Ministry of Sport. In the past, she has also worked for well-known reformist newspaper Shargh. After her arrest in December, Riahi was charged with “propaganda against the regime,” “spreading lies” and “connections with the enemy media”, although no specifics about the charges against her have been formally released or published.

“Early in the morning intelligence agents from the Revolutionary Guards raided the home of Tahereh Riahi and arrested her after searching her home and seizing personal items including her cell phone and computer,” a colleague of hers told the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran shortly after her arrest. Although agents from the Intelligence Unit of the Revolutionary Guards arrested her, it appears that Riahi is now being held by the government’s Intelligence Ministry.

“Unfortunately her family is under enormous pressure to avoid talking to the media,” the source said.

It has been reported that the court had set a bail of 300 million tomans, close to $93,000, for Tahereh Riahi’s release. The family was ready to post the bail, but when they went to Branch 2 of Iran’s Culture and Media Court, the bail was rejected. “Wait until we call you,” the family were told. The magistrate told them that Riahi’s arrest had been renewed because further investigation into her case was required.

Riahi also suffers from asthma, but officials of Ward 209 apparently refuse to let her take medication.

According to the same source, a fellow prisoner at Evin saw Tahereh Riahi by chance while she was being taken to an interrogation room and noticed the serious injury to her left eye. “It is not right that you damaged my eye,” she was heard saying to the interrogator.

After her arrest Riahi, was only allowed one 30-second phone call to her family. Since then, her family has not had any contact with her. As a result, her mother was hospitalized for a few days due to extreme anxiety and uncertainty over the fate of her daughter.

Riahi’s brother Mehdi Riahi told the website Asr-e Khabar that Tahereh had been summoned to the court as an informed source, not as an accused individual, and that she had never been arrested before. He also asked the media outside Iran not to talk about her arrest because the situation was “a small family matter” and had nothing to do with the “outsiders.” His statement seems to confirm reports that her family has been pressured to keep silent, a tactic regularly used by Iranian intelligence and security agencies. However, there is little evidence to show that remaining silent has benefited the case of prisoners of conscience in the past. 

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