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Renowned Canadian-Iranian environmental activist dies in jail in Tehran Iranian academics demand answers over death of jailed activist
(about 4 hours later)
Family demands independent autopsy after judiciary claims Kavous Seyed-Emami ended his own life President Hassan Rouhani urged to investigate alleged suicide of Kavous Seyed Emami
Reuters Agence France-Presse in Tehran
Mon 12 Feb 2018 03.33 GMT Mon 12 Feb 2018 09.49 GMT
First published on Mon 12 Feb 2018 03.33 GMT
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Iran’s judiciary has claimed that an Iranian-Canadian activist has ended his own life in detention because of the weight of evidence against him in a spying case, an Iranian news agency reported. Leading academics in Iran have written to the country’s president, Hassan Rouhani, to demand answers after a renowned environmentalist allegedly killed himself in prison.
Kavous Seyed-Emami’s son on Saturday wrote on Twitter that his father, arrested on 24 January, had died in prison. Environmental activist Seyed-Emami, 63, a dual national, was a sociology professor at Iran’s Imam Sadegh University. The family of Kavous Seyed Emami, 63, a professor at Imam Sadegh University and founder of the Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation, was told on Saturday that he had killed himself in prison two weeks after his arrest.
“The news of my father’s passing is impossible to fathom,” son Raam Emami wrote. “I still can’t believe this.” The family has asked for an independent autopsy, he said. A judiciary official said on Sunday that he had confessed to crimes related to an espionage investigation. Seven other members of his wildlife NGO are still behind bars.
Seyed-Emami was the managing director of the Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation, which seeks to protect Iran’s rare animals, and a US-trained scholar in sociology. “The news of the death of Dr Kavous Seyed Emami has astounded and shocked the scientific community and the environmental activists of the country,” four academic societies wrote in an open letter to Rouhani.
“He was one of the defendants in a spying case and unfortunately he committed suicide in prison since he knew that many had made confessions against him and because of his own confessions,” Tehran’s prosecutor Abbas Jafari-Dolatabadi told the semi-official ILNA news agency. “In addition to being a well-known professor, a distinguished scientist and war veteran … he was a noble and ethical human being,” the letter said. “The news and rumours related to his arrest and death are not believable.”
On Saturday, Jafari-Dolatabadi said Iran’s security forces had arrested several people who had been “gathering classified information in strategic areas ... under the coverage of scientific and environmental projects“. The letter was published by four leading associations in areas of political science, sociology, peace studies and cultural studies, which include professors from Iran’s top universities.
Authorities on Friday called Seyed-Emami’s wife to say her husband had committed suicide in Tehran’s Evin prison, his son tweeted. They wrote: “Our minimum expectation is that you take immediate and effective action to seriously investigate the case … and make the institutions involved in this painful loss accountable.”
The Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI), a non-profit group based in New York, said at least nine other staff members and executives of Seyed-Emami’s organisation had been arrested on the same day as him, citing a relative of one of those detained. Asked about the case on Monday, the judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejeie told the reformist ILNA news agency: “I have heard he committed suicide, but I have so far no information on the details. This recent incident is under investigation.”
They include an Iranian-American dual national, Morad Tahbaz, CHRI said. A US State Department spokeswoman said the United States was “aware of reports that a US citizen has been detained in Iran”. The environment department denied rumours that its deputy head, Kaveh Madani, had been arrested. The reformist MP Mahmoud Sadeghi had tweeted on Sunday that the department had told him Madani had been arrested over the weekend.
Separately, Iran’s judiciary has announced in recent weeks the suicides of two Iranians among those arrested during nationwide anti-government protests last month. A senior official at the department, who did not wish to be named, said on Monday that this was incorrect and that Madani was at work.
Their families, rights groups and lawyers have rejected the explanations of their deaths and demanded an independent investigation. A tweet was published on Madani’s personal Twitter account early on Monday for the first time in three days. “Hopeful for narrowmindness to get wiped out. Hopeful for peace of mind for environmental activists. Hopeful for the removal of concern of those awaiting the return of loved ones,” it read.
An Iranian official in Tehran said more arrests were expected in connection with Seyed-Emami’s organization.
There is currently no Canadian embassy in Iran, which does not recognise dual nationality. A spokeswoman for Global Affairs Canada, which manages Canadian foreign and trade relations, said on Saturday the government was aware of reports of the death of a Canadian citizen in Iran.
Dozens of dual nationals are in jail in Iran, mostly on spying charges.
IranIran
CanadaCanada
Middle East and North AfricaMiddle East and North Africa
AmericasAmericas
Hassan Rouhani
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