Brit-Iranian Activist Held In Solitary Confinement In Iran Prison After Labour Meetings

Story By: Lee BullenSub-EditorMarija Stojkoska,  Agency: Newsflash

A British-Iranian labour activist has been kept in solitary confinement in an Iranian prison for the past five months.

Mehran Raoof, 64, was arrested on 16th October 2020 with other workers’ rights campaigners and his only contact with anyone outside of prison was a brief telephone call with a relative in Iran.

He has reportedly been held in solitary confinement in Evin Prison in the Evin neighbourhood of the Iranian capital Tehran after the police monitored the political gatherings of activists in a local coffee shop.

Newsflash

Human rights campaigners claimed the British-Iranian campaigner was forced to confess under torture before a sham trial was quickly arranged.

His friends and relatives believe he was arrested after a meeting between around a dozen labour activists in the Iranian capital that was secretly recorded by security agents who then tracked them.

Raoof’s UK-based associate Satar Rahmani said: “The arrests were in October but before that, for three months they used to go to a place like a coffee shop to talk about workers’ problems in Iran.

“They talked about politics, but someone was spying on them without them knowing.”

Detainees who have since been released claimed that interrogators knew every word of the group’s conversations as well as their every movement.

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Raoof was detained in his Tehran apartments and officers seized his phone and computer during a coordinated crackdown on activists.

Human rights groups said he could hold value for regime because of his dual citizenship which can be used as a bargaining chip.

Raoof is one of several Brits detained in Iran or refused permission to leave, including Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 42.

Raoof was born and raised in Iran and studied in Huddersfield in West Yorkshire before the 1979 Iranian revolution.

He later lived in London and was actively involved in politics and labour rights in the UK.

Amnesty International has called on Iran to “immediately end his prolonged solitary confinement and protect him from further torture and other ill-treatment”.

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