Detained
Iranian scholar Ahmad Ghabel is reportedly in very poor health as a result of a
brain tumor.
The Kaleme opposition website reports that Ahmad Ghabel, a religious scholar in
Iran and the whistleblower on the alleged mass executions at Vakilabad Prison in
Mashhad, is nearly comatose on account of his brain tumor, and doctors have
given up on his treatment.
He family reports that his symptoms became apparent last summer when they
visited him in jail, and later, when he was given a temporary release, medical
tests revealed the presence of the tumor.
In August of 2011, Ghabel was given a 20-month jail sentence and transferred to
Vakilabad Prison.
Ghabel had been jailed twice before for charges of "propaganda against the
regime" and "insulting the leader" and for participating in the funeral of
dissident cleric Ayatollah Montazeri.
After his release from an earlier eight-month sentence, Ghabel informed the
International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran that a group of 70 prisoners
charged with drug offences had been executed en masse at Vakilabad Prison.
The authorities deny the charges but have confirmed that, because Mashhad is on
the route of many drug smugglers, Vakilabad has a high volume of drug offenders
that, by Islamic Republic law, can be given the death penalty.
Detained
Iranian scholar Ahmad Ghabel is reportedly in very poor health as a result of a
brain tumor.