Security forces harass family members of executed wrestling champion

Iran-HRM – The brother of executed wrestling champion Navid Afkari said his sister’s phone was confiscated by intelligence agents.

Just hours later all of Elham Afkari’s Instagram posts were removed and videos of Navid’s forced confessions were posted.

According to the Afkari family, following her arrest outside Shiraz Central Prison where her brothers Habib and Vahid have been held in solitary confinement since September 5, 2020, Elham Afkari’s phone was seized by regime officials and they have shared Navid Afkari’s forced confessions on her Instagram account.

Relatives of Afkari family asked social media users to report the incident and ask Instagram to block this page. The Instagram account is currently unavailable.

Ongoing pressure on Afkari family

Plainclothes agents beat and brutalized the Afkari family when they gathered Sunday outside the Adelabad prison in Shiraz to protest Vahid and Habib’s conditions in solitary confinement for 280 days.

Saeed Afkari tweeted on June 12 that his mother, father, other relatives, and activists were violently arrested by plainclothes agents as they gathered in front of Abdelabad Prison in Shiraz where the brothers are held to mark the 280th day of Vahid and Habib’s solitary confinements. The demonstrators were released after a few hours.

This is not the first time that Iranian authorities harass family members of executed wrestling champion Navid Afkari. In December 2020,  authorities damaged the gravesite of Navid Afkari. Authorities in Sangar village in the southwestern province of Fars used heavy equipment to destroy two walls around Akfari’s gravesite. The desecration of the gravesite occurred after Afkari’s father, Hossein, brother, Hamid, another relative, and a laborer had gone to Sangar’s cemetery to do preparation work for laying a tombstone for the executed wrestling champion.

Vahid and Habib Afkari under torture

Vahid and Habib Afkari were arrested in 2018 for taking part in peaceful protests in the southern city of Shiraz.

They were convicted of “enmity against God” and participation in anti-state street protests. Habib has been sentenced to 27 years and three months in prison and Vahid to 25 years in prison. Both have also been sentenced to 74 lashes.

Their brother Navid Afkari was executed in secret on September 12, 2020. Since then, the brothers have been held in solitary confinement cells.

Both were subjected to severe beatings and torture to make false confessions against themselves.

They are being denied proper medical treatment despite having suffered severe injuries in state custody.

Saeed Afkari tweeted on June 10 that a medical examiner had confirmed that his brothers Vahid and Habib Afkari had been severely injured in state custody.

“According to the opinion of the medical examiner, my brother Habib, during his detention in the intelligence office, suffered broken fingers and toes, a broken wrist that hasn’t healed, and a ruptured shoulder, and my brother Vahid suffers from injuries to his neck and hand due to an attempted suicide in protest against physical and psychological torture. They have been in solitary confinement for 279 days and are still being denied treatment.”

The Afkari family filed the petition with the Supreme Court on June 14 requesting that all three cases be reviewed.