Jailed Iranian blogger Hossein Ronaghi Maleki, who is on hunger strike, has written to Iran’s Supreme Leader to protest against his situation in jail.
The Kaleme website reports that Ronaghi Maleki wrote to Ayatollah Khamenei to condemn the “oppression, arrests, torture and imprisonments” in the country and to assert that Iran is plagued by “despotism, lawlessness and cruelty against those who love Iran, freedom and those who stand up for their rights.”
He adds that society is facing a “great explosion, and the current peace is basically due to force and intimidation, imprisonment and suppression.”
The jailed blogger states that he is going on a hunger strike beginning Saturday May 26 to protest “the unjustified interference of the Revolutionary Guards and the Ministry of Intelligence in legal matters and the denial of judicial independence.”
Ronaghi Maleki insists that he will stand by his actions, adding that: “I may find my place beside the late Hoda Saber, who gave his life innocently in prison.”
Hoda Saber, who was a jailed journalist and activist, died during a hunger strike in protest against the treatment and death of another jailed activist, Haleh Sahabi.
Ronaghi Maleki has been in grave need of medical treatment and, according to the Human Rights Activists News Agency, he began his hunger strike because prison authorities have denied him that treatment.
The jailed blogger has already lost one kidney and is reportedly in need of surgery.
He was arrested during the crackdown on protesters following the controversial 2009 presidential elections and has been sentenced to 15 years in jail.
