The arrest during the protests, the torture. Twenty days in a coma. Another young man in his early thirties, Mehdi Zare Ashkzari, was massacred and killed in Iran for participating in the revolt that has been going on for the past three months. He communicated it to Editoriale Domani Riccardo Noury, spokesman for Amnesty International Italy.
In 2015 Mehdi Zare Ashkzari had been a student of the Faculty of Pharmacy in Bologna, where he had also worked in a pizzeria to support his studies. Two years ago he returned home. The young man was allegedly released after the beatings to avoid feeling ill while in his cell, but he immediately fell into a coma afterwards. He was tortured “so much, to the point that after 20 days in a coma he died,” Iranian sources told Noury.
Let’s save Fahimeh, the appeal of La Stampa is one step away from 300,000 subscriptions
«The new year begins with this news to give us an alert on human rights violations occurring in the Swana region and in particular in Iran. Unibo now has a new victim of freedom of expression. Unfortunately, this time, it was too late to save him. All my condolences to his family and to us on this great loss.’ This is the message of Patrick Zakian Egyptian student from Unibo arrested at home on 7 February 2020 until 8 December 2021 and still on trial for crimes of opinion.
«We learned with pain and deep shock from Amnesty International that one of our Iranian students, Mehdi Zare Ashkzari, who had studied pharmacy in Bologna, died as a result of torture in Iran. He seems to have gone to see his dying mother. We express all our indignation, bewilderment and pain with him and for all the Iranian students who lost their lives for everyone’s freedom. The university and the city of Bologna will continue to ask for justice and the intervention of the institutions» said the professor Rita Monticelli, speaking at the peace march underway in Bologna. Monticelli is the coordinator of the Master Gemma, attended by Patrick Zaki and the mayor’s delegate for human rights and inter-religious and intercultural dialogue.
The revolt in Iran began last September 16 with the death of Mahsa Amini, the 22-year-old student arrested and beaten to death by the morality police for wearing the obligatory headscarf inappropriately. She was the first martyr of this revolt.
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Last December instead there was the first death sentence for an intellectual who participated in the anti-regime protests without taking to the streets, but with an interview on Israeli TV critical of the Islamic Republic. The first death sentence was carried out on Thursday 8 December. 23-year-old singer Mohsen Shekari was hanged on charges of moharebeh“enmity against God”. Then last December 12 it was the turn of Majid Reza Rahnavard, 23, accused of injuring a police officer during a demonstration.