Image copyright Iran Human Rights Monitor Image caption The activist was protesting against his conditions in prison

An Iranian political activist jailed for his messages on social media has died after spending 60 days on hunger strike, his family says.

Vahid Sayadi Nasiri had been accused of insulting Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other offences.

He was released last March after serving two-and-a-half years in prison but detained again five months later.

The activist demanded his transfer from a high-security unit of a prison in the city of Qom to a different location.

Vahid Sayadi Nasiri was initially arrested in September 2015 and sentenced to eight years in prison for "insulting the supreme leader" and "propaganda against the state," according to the advocacy group Iran Human Rights Monitor.

The charges were related to posts he had made on his Facebook page. He was later pardoned and released early.

However he was arrested again in August, just months after his release, reportedly on similar charges.

He began his hunger strike in October in protest at the conditions of his imprisonment and his lack of access to a lawyer, according to Iran Human Rights Monitor.

He also said the principle of separation of prisoners' crimes was being violated as he was being held with ordinary criminals and was being attacked and harassed, the group said.

Conditions in the Qom prison are described as harsh, correspondents say.

The activist had reportedly been taken to hospital in the wake of his hunger strike.

His sister, Elaheh, said the family had been informed by authorities of his death. No other details were immediately available.</s>An Iranian political activist jailed for his messages on social media has died after spending 50 days on hunger strike, his family says.

Vahid Sayadi Nasiri’s sister, Elaheh, told RFE/RL that the authorities had informed the family that the activist had died in a hospital in the city of Qom on December 12.

She said her brother went on hunger strike to protest against the conditions of his imprisonment and to demand his transfer from a high-security unit of a prison in Qom to Tehran’s Evin prison.

Nasiri was initially arrested in September 2015 and sentenced to eight years in prison for “insulting” Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and "propaganda against the state," according to the U.S.-based advocacy group Iran Human Rights Monitor.

The charges stemmed from posts he had made on his Facebook page.

Nasiri was released early in March after serving 2 1/2 years in prison, but was arrested again in August, reportedly on similar charges.</s>An Iranian political activist, detained in Qom Prison, died in his cell on Wednesday after a 60-day hunger strike.

Vahid Sayadi Nasiri was jailed in 2015 and sentenced to eight years after he was accused of insulting Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and spreading “propaganda against the state” on his Facebook account, according to the advocacy group Iran Human Rights Monitor.

During his initial detention at Raja’i Shahr and Evin prisons, Iran Human Rights Monitor alleges that Sayadi Nasiri had been harassed by operatives linked to the Iranian regime. The group say he was attacked in May 2017 by a fellow prisoner, and again in February, this time by two offenders. Sayadi Nasiri was released in March having served two-and-a-half years of his sentence, but detained again in August 2018.

He began his hunger strike in October in protest at the conditions of his imprisonment and his lack of access to a lawyer. According to Elaheh Sayadi Nasiri, his sister, Sayadi Nasiri had also requested that he be transferred to Evin Prison, on the outskirts of Tehran. the political activist had argued that being locked up alongside regular criminals was a violation of Iran’s regulations on the principle of separation of crimes.

According to Human Rights Watch, a non-governmental group, authorities in Iran “routinely restrict detainees’ access to legal counsel.” The U.S. State Department advises potential travelers to the country that “Iranian authorities continue to unjustly detain and imprison U.S. citizens, including students, journalists, business travelers, and academics, on charges including espionage and posing a threat to national security.”</s>WASHINGTON -- The United States has condemned Tehran for the “unconscionable” death of a hunger-striking Iranian political activist who had been jailed for messages he wrote on social media.

In a statement on December 13, State Department deputy spokesman Robert Palladino said Vahid Sayadi Nasiri, who died on December 12, had been “arbitrarily detained” by Iranian authorities after his arrest four months ago.

Nasiri had “no access to legal counsel, was held in inhumane conditions, and was charged with spurious national security offences such as ‘insulting the Supreme Leader,’” the statement said.

Nasiri’s sister, Elaheh, told RFE/RL that the authorities had informed the family that the activist had died in a hospital in the city of Qom.

She said her brother went on hunger strike to protest against the conditions of his imprisonment and to demand his transfer from a high-security unit of a prison in Qom to Tehran’s Evin prison.

Nasiri was initially arrested in September 2015 and sentenced to eight years in prison for “insulting” Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and "propaganda against the state," according to the U.S.-based advocacy group Iran Human Rights Monitor.

The charges stemmed from posts he had made on his Facebook page.

Nasiri was released early in March after serving 2 1/2 years in prison, but was arrested again in August, reportedly on similar charges.

The State Department statement said he was “just one of many more unjustly detained prisoners held at the mercy of the Iranian regime’s whims.”

“The United States condemns in the strongest possible terms the Iranian regime for its unceasingly flagrant human rights violations,” it said.

“We demand that the regime stops subjecting Iranians who are peacefully voicing their opinions to brutal conditions and slow deaths and that it release all those unjustly imprisoned,” it added.

The statement referred to two other detainees, Farhad Meysami -- who it said was also on hunger strike -- and Nasrin Sotoudeh.

Meysami, a medical doctor, was detained in July for supporting women protesting against the hijab law that forces them to cover their hair and body in public.

He has been reportedly on a hunger strike since August to protest the charges he faces and also the lack of access to a lawyer of his choosing. He reportedly is being held in a medical clinic at Evin prison, where he is being force-fed intravenously.

Sotoudeh, a human rights lawyer, was arrested in June after she represented several of the women detained for removing their head scarves in public to protest against the country’s Islamic dress code.

The European Parliament on December 13 overwhelmingly passed a resolution calling for the Iranian government to “immediately and unconditionally” release Sotoudeh.

Sotoudeh -- the co-winner of the European Parliament's 2012 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought -- has denied all charges against her.</s>The death of a previously little-known Iranian dissident who was on a hunger strike to protest his detention by Iran has sparked an outcry from rights activists and other social media users.

Family members told VOA Persian that prison authorities in the northern city of Qom telephoned them Wednesday to say that Vahid Sayyadi-Nasiri had died in a Qom hospital earlier that day. His mother and a brother said they later tried to locate his body but hospital staff told them it had been taken to a morgue at Qom’s main cemetery.

The New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) described Sayyadi-Nasiri as a 28-year-old real estate specialist who was critical of Iranian state policy on social media, but had little national name recognition until his death.

Iran’s Human Rights Activist News Agency (HRANA) said Iranian intelligence agents detained Sayyadi-Nasiri in Qom in July and authorities put him on trial in September on charges of disseminating propaganda against the state and insulting Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. It said a revolutionary court later sentenced him to 4½ years in prison.

Rights groups said Sayyadi-Nasiri previously had served a two-year prison term on similar charges before being released in March this year. They said he began a hunger strike against his latest detention Oct. 13 to protest inhumane prison conditions and a lack of access to a lawyer and he died on the 60th day of his protest.

In a Thursday report, Iranian judiciary news agency Mizan quoted Qom province’s chief prosecutor Shokrollah Bahrami as saying Sayyadi-Nasiri had been in poor physical health as a result of a liver disease and was transferred to a hospital, before dying there seven days later.

Bahrami said the cause of the activist’s death was under investigation.

CHRI said Sayyadi-Nasiri’s apparent death from a hunger strike heightened the urgency of resolving what it called “legitimate” grievances of other Iranian dissidents who have been on similar hunger strikes to protest their ongoing detentions.

The group highlighted the case of 48-year-old Iranian physician and rights activist Farhad Meysami, who it said has been on a hunger strike at Tehran’s Evin prison since Aug. 1. Authorities had detained Meysami a day earlier for possessing books and badges protesting Iran’s Islamist policy of forcing women to wear a hijab in public.

CHRI said Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh, detained in June for expressing support for women who had been publicly protesting Iran’s compulsory hijab law, began a second hunger strike Nov. 26. It said she was protesting authorities’ refusal to allow Meysami, her friend, to receive hospital treatment.

“Sayyadi-Nasiri’s death and the danger of more deaths are a result of a judicial system that is out of control and which has abandoned any semblance of defending the rule of law,” said CHRI executive director Hadi Ghaemi. “More deaths will come if the authorities persist with these unlawful imprisonments, their denial of due process and the inhumane incarceration conditions in Iran,” he added.

Reports of Sayyadi-Nasiri’s death sparked further outrage on social media. Twitter users posted about 25,000 tweets with the hashtag #Vahid_Sayyadi_Nasiri in Farsi in a 24-hour period from Wednesday to Thursday, with many expressing sorrow for not previously having heard about his case.

This article originated in VOA’s Persian Service. Ramin Haghjoo contributed to this report.
Iranian political activist Vahid Sayadi Nasiri, who was jailed for his messages on social media, dies after spending 60 days on hunger strike. He was accused of insulting Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.