Iranian of the Day

Melli Mazhabi Website: According to confirmed news from Ahvaz human rights activists, cleric Seyed Ahmadreza Ahmadpour, a Khuzestan Province journalist, blogger, and researcher at Qom Seminary, was transferred from Ahvaz Prison to Yazd Prison.

A student of the late Grand Ayatollah Montazeri, Ahmad Reza Ahmadpour was first arrested on December 27 in Qom. He was sentenced to one year in prison and defrocking on charges of "acting against national security" and "violating the dignity of the clergy" for his writings. He served his term inside the Clerics Ward of Qom Prison.

Ahmadpour was arrested again on orders from Qom Special Clerics Court on July 18, 2011, after he wrote a letter to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in 2010, in which he spoke of the violations of his citizenship rights. He was sentenced to three years in prison in exile, and an additional 10 years of exile, defrocking, and deprivation from any clerical position on charges of "propaganda against the regime" and "contact with the Mojahedin-e-Khalgh." He was transferred from Qom Prison to Ahvaz Prison in December 2011 to begin serving the imprisonment-in-exile portion of his sentence.

A disabled Iran-Iraq War veteran, Ahmad Reza Ahmadpour suffers from respiratory problems due to exposure to chemical warfare during the war. During his imprisonment in the Sepidar Prison in Ahvaz, he developed asthma, respiratory allergies, and cardiac problems due to harsh prison conditions, lack of medical care and facilities for his treatment, poor nutrition, and poor climate conditions.

In May 2012, Ahmad Reza Ahmadpour started a hunger strike to protest the lack of attention to his various illnesses, and wrote a letter to the Head Warden of Ahvaz Prison. The Ahvaz Special Clerics Court reacted to Ahmadpour's hunger strike, and authorized his medical furlough to be hospitalized in order to have an angiogram. Despite orders from his attending physicians to remain released on furlough or to be transferred to a prison facility in an area with better climate, Ahmad Reza Ahmadpour was transferred to Yazd Prison in Central Iran this week.