Iranian political prisoner Mehdi Khazali has collapsed from heart complications on the 41st day of his hunger strike in Tehran’s Evin Prison.
The Kaleme opposition website reports that Khazali, the director of Hayan publications and a dissident blogger, was admitted last night to Taleghani Hospital.
Khazali has announced that he will not end his hunger strike despite this development.
Khazali began refusing food to protest against his “illegal arrest and detention in prison.”
Many political activists as well as his cellmates and family members have urged him to end his strike, but he published a letter last Monday saying they should instead ask the authorities to end “their imprisonments.”
Khazali’s wife and daughter were reportedly arrested on February 14 and taken to an unknown location.
Khazali is sentenced to 14 years in prison, 10 years in exile and 90 lashes for writing critical blogs about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and other government officials.
He has written on several occasions to the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei to protest against the country’s political situation.
Abolghassem Khazali, Mehdi Khazali’s father, is a member of the Assembly of Experts and a hardline member of the Islamic Republic establishment who has disowned his son.
