Hossein R. Maleki’s health is deteriorating everyday

Imprisoned blogger and human rights activist Hossein Ronaghi Maleki who is suffering from a serious kidney ailment is not receiving medical care and is banned from medical prison leave.

The family of Hossein Ronaghi Maleki visited him in prison today and discussed his deteriorating health in an interview with Kalame. “As we have in the past few months, we again visited judiciary and prison officials pleading with them to allow Hossein a medical leave from prison. But again, nobody will answer our pleas. They will not allow Hossein to receive necessary medical care. We don’t know what else to do.”

This blogger’s father added, ”We travel to Tehran every week in hopes of visiting him. We are so worried about his grave physical condition. His Kidneys are infected and doctors have said that he needs immediate surgery. But authorities will not allow the surgery to take place. We will stay in Tehran hoping that maybe there is something we can do for our child.”

As a reminder, in the beginning of January of this year Hossein was taken to Modares Hospital in Tehran due to his declining health. At that time the doctors at Modares Hospital said that his ailment is very serious and he needs to get urgent surgery.

This imprisoned blogger’s health continued to deteriorate and in February he was transferred to a hospital again. This time he was taken to Baghyallah Hospital located on Mollasadra Street. The doctors in this hospital also recommended immediate surgery but Hossein was taken back to prison because the cost of the operation was too high.

Prison officials said that they could not pay for this prisoner’s surgery. This is despite the fact that Hossein Ronaghi Maleki’s family had already come up with the necessary funds and they told prison officials that they would pay for the operation. Despite this, medical care was denied to Hossein.

Hossein Ronaghi Maleki was arrested on December 13, 2009 at his father’s house and transferred to Evin prison. He spent about 10 months in solitary confinement in Evin’s Ward 2A which is under the jurisdiction of the Revolutionary Guards. He was put under severe psychological and physical duress. With an ambiguous judicial process Hossein’s trial took place in October 2010 and the Revolutionary Court sentenced him to 15 years in prison. The Court of Appeals later upheld his sentencing. Hossein is now serving his sentence in Ward 350 of Evin prison.

Human Rights House of IRAN