URGENT ACTION JAILED BLOGGER DENIED ADEQUATE MEDICAL CARE Iranian blogger Mohammad Reza Pourshajari, also known by his pen name of Siamak Mehr, is in urgent need of medical care that he cannot obtain in prison. He is serving a four-year sentence in Ghezel Hesar Prison in Karaj, north-west of Tehran. Mohammad Reza Pourshajari, aged 53, has suffered two heart attacks in prison, in September 2012 and again in February 2013, after which the authorities moved him to a hospital outside the prison for five days. The Iranian authorities have denied him medical leave to receive the medical treatment he needs, including treatment for blockage in his arteries, against the advice of prison doctors. Mohammad Reza Pourshajari’s daughter, Mitra Pourshajari, has told Amnesty International that the doctors in the medical facility attached to the prison have also diagnosed her father as having high blood sugar, though the prison administration told him they will no longer provide his medicine. The Iranian authorities have pressured Mohammad Reza Pourshajari at least once, on or about 14 September 2013, to ask for a pardon from the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Sayed ‘Ali Khamenei, for his “crimes”. He refused to do so, saying he had not committed any act that would require him to seek a pardon. Mohammad Reza Pourshajari is serving four years in prison after he was convicted of the vaguely worded charges of “insulting Islamic sanctities”, “insulting the Leader” and “acting against national security” in relation to his blog postings which are critical of the religious and political establishment.
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