Rajabian Brothers Returned to Prison

On February 7, brothers Mehdi and Hossein Rajabian were returned to Evin Prison’s Ward 7 after five days of medical leave. 

According to a report by Human Rights Activists News Agency [Persian link], the Rajabian brothers were given a three-day leave that the prosecution team then extended for a further two days. “After returning to the prison,” an informed source told the news agency, “Mehdi was transferred to the prison clinic and since then there has been no news about his health.” 

Mehdi Rajabian, a musician, and Hossein, a filmmaker, were first arrested in October 2013, along with a friend, Yousef Emadi. They were originally arrested because of their links to Barg Music, a distributor of underground music. For 18 days they were kept in an unknown location and subjected to torture and electric shocks. They were then transferred to Evin Prison’s Ward 2A, controlled by the Revolutionary Guards, where they spent two months in solitary confinement and were repeatedly interrogated. They were released on bail but two years after their initial arrest they were charged with “insulting the sacred” and “propaganda against the regime,” and in December 2015, Judge Mohammad Moghiseh from Branch 28 of the Revolutionary Court sentenced each to five years’ imprisonment for the insult charge and a further one year for propaganda. According to informed sources, the trial lasted only a few minutes and the accused were not represented by a lawyer.

The brothers went on hunger strike on 28 October 2016 and demanded their freedom. This followed an earlier hunger strike in September to protest against authorities’ refusal to allow them adequate medical care or medical leave, and against the decision to separate the brothers by holding them in different sections of Evin Prison. After a short medical leave in late November Mehdi Rajabian, was returned to prison on December 4 even though he has several medical conditions for which he needs medication and specialized medical care. “Following a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan prior to his imprisonment,” reported Amnesty International, “a neurology specialist told Mehdi Rajabian that he appeared to be developing multiple sclerosis (MS) and needed further diagnostic tests. For the first two months in detention he was denied medication that his doctor said is essential to delay the onset of MS symptoms. He also suffers from seizures, which he has said began following beatings inflicted on him by security officials after his arrest in October 2013.”

Speaking about Mehdi Rajabian’s recent hospitalization, a source told the Human Rights Activists News Agency, “After an MRI the doctor in the hospital had said that the spots on his brain had increased and that he needed constant medical attention.”

During the brothers’ incarceration there have been many calls from the international community for their unconditional release. In January 2016, 165 prominent Iranian artists issued a statement in support of their release, stating: “This kind of sentencing by the judiciary is more believable in dealing with murderers, not artists.” PEN International also sent a letter to Judiciary Head Ayatollah Sadegh Larijani calling for their release.