Ahmadreza Djalali Beaten by Evin Prison Officials

According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights, Ahmadreza Djalali is being held in poor conditions and banned from contact with his family.

Some of his cellmates have reported that “Ahmadreza Djalali was beaten in the prison infirmary on April 4.”

An informed source told Iran Human Rights: “Ahmadreza protested when he realised that the infirmary staff were stealing his medication and asked them to return them. They ignored his request and proceeded to beat him up.”

As he is still banned from contact with his family, they are unable to determine the extent of his injuries.

Ahmadreza Djalali who had travelled to Iran at the official invitation of the University of Tehran, was arrested by Ministry of Intelligence agents on 24 April 2016 and spent three months in the Ministry’s detention centre.

Initially charged with “collaborating with hostile states”, he was later charged with “efsad-fil-arz (corruption on earth) through espionage for Israel” by the Revolutionary Court of Tehran which was also upheld by the Supreme Court.

There has been speculation that the Islamic Republic of Iran is attempting to exchange Hamid Noury, on trial in Stockholm on war crime charges for his role in the 1988 prison massacre of thousands of political prisoners, for Ahmadreza Djalali or Stephen Kevin Gilbert and Simon Casper Brown, two Swedish nationals imprisoned in Iran for drug smuggling charges.