Committee of Human Rights Reporters – Hossein Ronaghi Maleki, jailed activist in Evin prison has launched a hunger strike following his protest of issues including the prison condition and lack of attention to his medical needs.
According CHRR, in the past weeks this political prisoner had shared with his family during visitations that in protest of the authorities’ lack of care for the life and physical state of a human being, if nothing were changed he would embark on a hunger strike. Hossein Ronaghi launched a hunger strike on Friday August 9th.
Seyed Ahmad Ronaghi Maleki, the father of the jailed blogger told CHRR in a recent interview that in addition to his kidney disease, Hossein now suffers from gastrointestinal bleeding and has been vomiting - prompting a physician’s order for him to refrain from taking the necessary medication for his kidney and prostate disease – yet medical furlough has been denied.
Hossein Ronaghi, blogger and Internet activist who is one of the founding members of Iran Proxy – a group that bypassed Internet censorship with proxy servers - was violently arrested on December 13, 2009 at his parental home in the city of Melikan located near Tabriz and was transferred to Ward 2A in Evin Prison [under control of IRGC]. Hasan Ronaghi Maleki, Hossein’s brother was also detained at that time despite the fact that he had not engaged in any political activities. Hasan was tortured and used as a tool in an attempt to intimidate his brother. For over10 months Hossein Ronaghi was held in solitary confinement in Evin’s Ward 2A which is under the jurisdiction of the IRGC. He was subjected to intense psychological abuse and physical torture in efforts to coerce him into making a false televised confession, which he refused.
On December 1, 2010 Branch 26 of the Revolutionary Court presided by judge Pir Abassi handed Hossein Ronaghi Maleki a 15-year prison sentence. Among his charges were “membership in Iran Proxy”, “insulting the leadership”, and “insulting the Islamic Republic.” In 2010 Hossein Ronaghi went on 2 hunger strikes in protest of prison conditions and the mistreatment of prisoners. His mother also went on a 2-week hunger strike to voice her support for her son.
On August 22, 2012 Hossein Ronaghi who had been on medical leave from prison was detained along with his father and brother, Ahmad and Hasan Ronaghi Maleki, and 33 other volunteers and social activists who had gone to the aid of earthquake victims in the province of Azerbaijan.
Ronaghi received a 2-year prison sentence handed on the charge of “gathering and collusion against national security” in the Azerbaijan earthquake zone. Per a ruling handed down by Branch 112 of the Tabriz Public Court, he was also sentenced to 6 months in prison on the charges of “endangering public health through distribution of moldy bread,” and “disobeying an officer.” With the additional rulings, the total sentence for Hossein Ronaghi Maleki increased to 17.5 years in prison.
Ahmad Ronaghi Maleki, father of Hossein Ronaghi has been summoned to appear at Branch 8 of Hasheminejad Court tomorrow August 11th.
HRANA News Agency – Hossein Ronaghi Maleki, the political prisoner of ward 350 of Evin prison, has started hunger strike since Friday August 9 opposing the critical condition he has in the prison.
According to a report by Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), Hossein Ronaghi Maleki, the imprisoned blogger, has started a hunger strike opposing the critical condition created for him in the prison because of being prohibited from medical treatment.
Hossein Ronaghi Maleki, suffers from kidney disease and stomach bleeding. He has had a kidney operation before and been on hunger strike several times in prison.
Ahmad Ronaghi Maleki, Hossein’s father, also has to go to branch 8 of Tehran revolutionary court this morning.
Hossein Ronaghi Maleki has been sentenced to 15 years of prison by the branch 15 of Tehran revolutionary court and is in prison since December 2009.
MONTEGO BAY, Jamaica (AP) — Dwayne Jones was relentlessly teased in high school for being effeminate until he dropped out. His father not only kicked him out of the house at the age of 14 but also helped jeering neighbors push the youngster from the rough Jamaican slum where he grew up.
By age 16, the teenager was dead — beaten, stabbed, shot and run over by a car when he showed up at a street party dressed as a woman. His mistake: confiding to a friend that he was attending a "straight" party as a girl for the first time in his life.
"When I saw Dwayne's body, I started shaking and crying," said Khloe, one of three transgender friends who shared a derelict house with the teenager in the hills above the north coast city of Montego Bay. Like many transgender and gay people in Jamaica, Khloe wouldn't give a full name out of fear.
"It was horrible. It was so, so painful to see him like that."
International advocacy groups often portray this Caribbean island as the most hostile country in the Western Hemisphere for gay and transgender people. After two prominent gay rights activists were murdered, a researcher with the U.S.-based Human Rights Watch in 2006 called the environment in Jamaica for such groups "the worst any of us has ever seen."
Chicago police had the awkward and unpleasant task of removing a loaded gun from the buttocks of a man they pulled over.
Police where in Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood investigating an incident in which witnesses say a man in a black car fired at least two shots during a quarrel with a group of men.
Officers spotted a vehicle matching the witnesses’ description later that night and saw two men in the car with their seats reclined, attempted to hide form view.
When officers approached the vehicle, Marco Alvarado, 20, was in the driver’s seat. Officers found two open cans of beer in the car and asked the two men to step out of the car. A closer look in the vehicle did not turn up a gun, but Alvarado later admitted he had hidden a loaded gun in his buttocks.
The police report sates Alvarado said, “I’m gonna be real with you. I have a gun in my a**.”
Officers recovered a .22 caliber blue steel revolver with two live rounds placed “between his buttocks,” the the gun’s serial number filed away.
Alvarado later admitted he was the man who fired the rounds earlier in the evening.
On Thursday, the Latin Kings member was held on $20,000 bail and charged with four counts of possession of a firearm with a defaced serial number.
Alvarado told police he fired three times into the air but said he only did so because his friend was being attacked.
DENVER – U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement have released Jeanette Vizguerra, a Mexican activist living in Colorado, supporters of her 4-year-long battle against deportation said Friday.
This is an “unexpected occurrence,” Jordan Garcia, a director of the American Friends Service Committee’s Colorado Immigrant Rights Program, said.
He said ICE officials were known to be reviewing the plea entered by Vizguerra’s attorneys to cancel the deportation order.
Garcia described as “final” the federal agency’s decision not to deport Vizguerra, who has lived in the United States for 15 years and has three U.S.-born children.
For Garcia, the massive mobilization of the AFSC, the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition, the Rights for All organization and the local affiliate of the Service Employees International Union helped bring about the canceling of the deportation.
In 2009, Vizguerra was arrested for driving without a license. Later investigations determined that she was not in the country legally and had used documents that did not belong to her to get work, though she had begun procedures to regularize her status.
ICE decided to deport her. In 2011, after a march through downtown Denver in favor of Vizguerra, the deportation was postponed, though a federal judge refused to close the case.
Without waiting for a final verdict, Vizguerra traveled to Mexico in 2012 to attend her mother’s funeral. Though she tried to stay in her native country, she was unable to find work, so she decided to return to the United States last April.
In doing so, she was detained for several days in El Paso, Texas, but was then released and returned to Denver.
Later, on July 24, Vizguerra was arrested upon entering a meeting with ICE, and on Aug. 5 her final appeal to avoid deportation was denied. EFE
DENVER – U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement have released Jeanette Vizguerra, a Mexican activist living in Colorado, supporters of her 4-year-long battle against deportation said Friday.