Ahwazi political activist Mohammad Hattab called on international human rights organizations to intervene urgently to help out his jailed father, who suffers from life-threatening health conditions, after Iranian authorities chose to transfer him from an intelligence detention center to a Shiban prison, without pressing any charges.
According to Hattab, who has been living in Vienna since 2015, his father, Hattab Sari, 58, has been in detention since November and faces the threat of death without proper emergency care for gastrointestinal infections he suffers from. Sari also risks losing eyesight.
Hattab said Iranian authorities have arrested his father and four other members of his family purely because of his political and media activity abroad.
“In recent years, Iranian security services have adopted several methods to pressure political activists abroad, such as journalists, dissidents and others who oppose the policies of the Iranian regime,” human rights activist Karim Dahimi saidو noting that many anti-regime Iranians living overseas have their family members and close friends inhumanly jailed.
Other members of Hattab’s family have also been arrested to intimidate the social activist-- both his brothers, his sister, and nephew were also jailed, with the fate of one of the brothers remaining unknown.
No charges were pressed against the Hattab family arrestees, denying their right to defense. Strikingly, the five were transferred from intelligence detention centers to Shiban prison facilities without undergoing any legal proceedings.
“As for his legal status, my father still does not know what the charges against him are,”Hattab confirms, highlighting that both his father and brother, Amin Hattab, were arrested after heading to a Revolutionary Guards intelligence center to demand information concerning the fate of his other brother Ali Hattab, who was back in March 2017 and is said to have been the victim of ruthless torture such as beatings and the plying of fingernails.
