Mehdi Khazaeli Arrested

Mehdi Khazaeli was arrested in front of his office by members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.

He announced that from the moment of his arrest he would refrain from eating and drinking water and would begin a dry hunger strike.

Khazaeli on Wednesday, 13 Bahman, at a gathering at the Writers’ House announced by reading a statement: “On 22 Bahman we will not leave our homes and will not become the army of enemies! We will not go to the streets to endorse killings and plunder, crimes and atrocities, ignorance and folly, and imprisonment and captivity. On 22 Bahman, in respect of freedom and democracy, we will stay at home so that despots and monopolists, plunderers and brigands, thieves and embezzlers remain alone in the streets. So that people recognize the hired mercenary committee – which has sat at the lavish table of the revolution and eaten ‘even when the throats reached,’ – for what they are.”

In another section of this statement it says: “For years they have confiscated the presence of the people as they see fit, with a thousand tricks they have dragged people to the streets and then confiscated everything to their advantage and named this presence as approval and allegiance! They used puppet show dolls, puppet theater, street theater and performers as tools to drag people to the streets and then confiscate everything at once!”

It appears that the anger of some security layers in the Islamic Republic toward this call has led to the arrest of Mehdi Khazaeli.

It is not yet clear to which security ward Khazaeli has been transferred.

Khazaeli previously, in an audio file, confirmed the death of Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani by means of strangulation in water and criticized the doctors of Shahid Tajrish Hospital for not transferring the body to the coroner’s office and issuing a death certificate under pressure from the judiciary.

Mehdi Khazaeli is an Iranian physician (ophthalmology specialist), son of the late Ayatollah Abolqasim Khazaeli, director of Hayan Publications, and founder of Abasoleh Cultural and Publishing Institute.

In recent years, Mehdi Khazaeli has been arrested repeatedly and has frequently gone on hunger strike in protest of injustice and oppression and non-compliance with legal procedures in the judicial system. In total, in seven occasions, he has had hunger strikes lasting 285 days.

Updated Report

Dr. Mehdi Khazaeli, after his arrest, was transferred to Ward 350 (general ward) of Evin Prison.

This ward of Evin Prison belongs to the judiciary.

Khazaeli began his dry hunger strike from today and announced the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps as the agent of his arrest.