Wife 'Has No News' of Jailed Iranian Filmmaker's Condition

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty

The wife of jailed Iranian filmmaker and journalist Mohammad Nourizad says she has had no news about his health, just days after he planned to begin a dry hunger-strike in Tehran's Evin prison, RFE/RL's Radio Farda reports.

Fatemeh Maleki said Nourizad declared earlier he would start a hunger strike on December 11 and continue until his death. She told Radio Farda on December 13 that she "waited outside Evin prison in severe cold weather from [the] morning until 5 p.m., but could not get any news of my husband."

Nourizad was detained in December 2009 after publishing several open letters on his blog to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, whom he held responsible for the crackdown following the June 2009 presidential election.

Nourizad was sentenced to 3 1/2 years in jail and 50 lashes on charges of insulting the supreme leader and antistate propaganda.

He was released on bail in June this year but was returned to Evin prison two months later after he wrote another open letter critical of Khamenei.

Maleki said her husband began the hunger-strike to protest his three-minute "show trial" during which he said he was insulted by the presiding judge.

Nourizad used to work for the conservative newspaper "Kayhan." He was a supporter of Khamenei until the crackdown that followed last year's disputed presidential election.

In his most recent open letter to Khamenei in October, Nourizad argued that the United States protects religious freedom and moral values more than Iran does. Addressing Khamenei, he wrote: "You are the only person in Iran who enjoys freedom of speech, while each and every American has freedom of speech in his country."