Watchdog

Iranian activist Esmail Bakhshi has been out of jail for a month, but says he still bears the physical and psychological scars from being tortured "to the verge of death" during his 25-day jail stay in Khuzestan Province.

Bakhshi was arrested on November 20 for his role in weeks-long protests over unpaid salaries at a local sugar factory. He was charged with disruption of public order and collusion against national security and spent weeks in jail before his release on bail on December 12.

Now Bakhshi's claims have shined a light into the greater issue of prisoner mistreatment and torture, which rights group say is widespread, and have prompted parliament to launch an investigation.

'Intolerable Pain'

"Weeks after my release, I still feel intolerable pain in my broken ribs, left ear, and testicles," Bakhshi wrote in an Instagram post on January 5 in which he detailed the alleged abuse he endured.

"I was so badly battered that I could not move for 72 hours in my solitary confinement cell," he added. "The pain was so unbearable that it made sleeping impossible."

During his detention, activists claimed, Bakhshi suffered internal bleeding and injuries to his head and face stemming from interrogations at the jail in Ahvaz, the capital of oil-rich Khuzestan Province, in southwestern Iran.

In his Instagram post, Bakhshi expounded on the situation, saying that both he and journalist Sepideh Qolian, who was arrested at the same time, were subjected to psychological torture.

"What was interesting was that the torturers, who called themselves soldiers of the Imam [a revered figure among Shi'ite Muslims], attacked me and Ms. Qolian with abusive sexual profanity while beating us," Bakhshi wrote.

He also claimed that his interrogators told him his phone was bugged long before his arrest. "While beating me, one of the interrogators said that they knew everything about me, including a dispute with my wife over my labor-rights activities," Bakhshi wrote.

Balkhshi challenged Intelligence Minister Mahmud Alavi, a mid-ranking cleric, to a live TV debate concerning the alleged torture of detainees.

"As a cleric, and from the moral and human rights point of view, tell us what is the sentence for those who torture prisoners? Is torturing prisoners permissible? If it is, to what extent? Does the ministry you run have the right to secretly monitor private telephone conversations?"

'Source Of Shame'

Iranian media reported that a parliament committee has been authorized to investigate Bakhshi's claims after lawmakers requested a probe.

Ali Motahari, an outspoken member of parliament, wrote a column in the reformist Etemad daily on January 6 in which he said Bakhshi's claims were a "source of shame" and demanded answers from the Intelligence Ministry.

Gholamreza Shariati, the governor of Khuzestan, denied Bakhshi's claims. "I checked with the relevant bodies and the claim of torture was strongly denied," he told the Jamaran news website.

International human rights groups have long alleged that torture is widespread during the interrogation of detainees in Iran, including rape and other sexual violence, electric shock, and amputations.

Rights groups have also alleged that medical treatment is denied to certain categories of detainees, especially prisoners of conscience, political prisoners, and human rights defenders.

Strikes Hit Iran

The protests at Haft Tapeh, which has around 4,000 workers, largely ended in December after the workers received their wages.

Iran has seen multiple strikes and protests in recent months over working conditions and unpaid wages in a range of sectors, including steel, education, mining, and transportation.

Iran is in the grip of an economic crisis and has seen sporadic protests in recent months.

The United States reimposed economic sanctions on Iran in early November, targeting Tehran's crucial oil, transportation, and financial sectors.

An Azerbaijani media-rights group has added its name to the list of organizations urging the government to release a hunger-striking blogger who was targeted with a new charge just weeks before his expected release from prison.

Members of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), Human Rights Watch (HRW), and other watchdog groups, and The Washington Post's editorial board have also demanded that 26-year-old Mehman Huseynov be freed.

Huseynov has been on a hunger strike for 13 days, his lawyer says, amid suspicions that the administration fabricated its latest accusation against the former anticorruption blogger and media activist.

The Institute for Reporters' Freedom and Safety, which Huseynov once led, says the new charge against him stems from the "criminal and corrupt nature" of Azerbaijan's ruling regime.

It urged the British government to pressure Baku into ensuring Huseynov gets proper medical care and to cancel any anticipated "high-level visits, meetings, and strategic deals" with its Azerbaijani counterpart.

"We call on [U.K. authorities] to act NOW to Save Mehman Huseynov's life," the Azerbaijani NGO said in a tweet late on January 6.

Prison authorities refuted the claim that Huseynov was on a hunger strike.

"As far as I know, Mehman is accepting water as well as food. That man is not hungry," Mehman Sadiqov, head of the public-relations department for the prison service, told RFE/RL, adding that medical officials "immediately" attend to any prisoner who experiences health problems.

Huseynov is already serving a two-year prison sentence after being convicted of libel for saying he had been mistreated by police in January 2017.

Just weeks earlier, he had posted photographs of luxury homes he alleged belonged to government officials and lawmakers and had been critical of Mehriban Aliyeva's eventual appointment to the post of first vice president by her husband, President Ilham Aliyev.

Huseynov has maintained his innocence and called the original case against him politically motivated.

In late December, about two months before the end of his sentence, Huseynov was charged with "resisting a representative of the authorities with the use of violence dangerous to [the representative's] health and life."

His lawyer, Shahla Humbatova, said Huseynov could face up to seven years if convicted on the charge.

She also told RFE/RL's Azerbaijani Service on January 4 that the fresh charge had prompted Huseynov to refuse all liquids and solids from December 26 to December 30. After that, he began taking water, she said, but nothing else.

"He says he is determined to continue the hunger strike, and he emphasized that this is the only means of struggle against injustice that he has at this time," Humbatova said.

Human rights groups accuse Aliyev's government of fabricating criminal cases to stifle dissent and media freedom in the oil-producing Caspian country of around 10 million people.

Giorgi Gogia, associate director of HRW's Europe and Central Asia division, and Ane Tusvik Bonde, a senior adviser at Human Rights House Foundation, have also called for Huseynov's release and for the new charges to be dropped.

"Unfortunately, there are justified grounds for the assumption that these new charges [against Huseynov] are clearly politically motivated and clearly designed to further silence a prominent human rights activist whom we consider a political prisoner," said the PACE co-rapporteurs for the monitoring of Azerbaijan, Sir Roger Gale (United Kingdom) and Stefan Schennach (Austria).

"Furthermore, we are alarmed by the fact that Mehman Huseynov has embarked upon a hunger strike as the only means available to him to protest about his plight. We call upon the Azerbaijani authorities to review his case as a matter of absolute priority," they added in the January 5 statement.

Huseynov's case is reminiscent of blogger and activist Mehman Qalandarov, who died on April 2017 in Azerbaijani custody following his arrest on drug-trafficking charges that rights activists contend were fabricated.

Qalandarov, a government critic who had repeatedly called for the release of imprisoned opposition activists, was said to have hanged himself, though critics of the Azerbaijani government have said the circumstances of his death were murky.

A Committee To Protect Journalists report in December listed Azerbaijan among the world's most egregious jailers of reporters.