The latest on imprisoned student activist Keyvan Rafii

The Students’ committee of human rights reporters announced that human rights activist, Keyvan Rafii who was arrested during last year’s July 9th commemoration of the 1999 student uprising has been being detained in ward 209 of Evin prison ever since; he is now spending his sixth month in solitary detention. According to the Rafii family, a while back a hearing was organized in branch 13 of the revolutionary court, presided over by Judge Sadat; the court however prohibited the presence of Rafii’s lawyer during this hearing.

Keyvan Rafii conveyed [to his family] that the session also took place without the presence of the prosecutor and the judge read the text of the prosecutor’s penalty; this is while holding private and unofficial court sessions, without the presence of the public prosecutor, is illegal.

The charges raised against him are said to be “propaganda against the regime and inflaming public opinion”.

Rafii who remains in limbo in solitary confinement, in a meeting with his family conveyed that now, after 6 months, the guards of the ministry of intelligence and security (MOIS) who illegally run the infamous ward 209 of Evin prison, rather than transferring him to the public section of the ward, just supply him with newspapers in order to keep him “satisfied”; the court has ordered that Rafii be moved to the public ward but the jailors willfully defying the judge’s orders continue to detain him in solitary.

In a lawless Iran, no official who is denying the rights of citizens is ever held accountable and from one body of the regime to another, no one answers to anyone else.