Executed Wrestler's Family Ordeal Continues In Iran
Saeed Afkari, the brother of wrestler Navid Afkari who was executed in 2020, says prison officials his brother, Vahid's arm and security forces shot at them.
Saeed Afkari, the brother of wrestler Navid Afkari who was executed in 2020, says prison officials his brother, Vahid's arm and security forces shot at them.
Saeed Afkari said on Sunday that prison officials had broken his other brother's hand when he resisted as guards wanted to transfer him to a solitary cell.
Afkari also said that prison guards fired at him and his family from the rooftop, stopped firing after the family shouted, "Shoot the bullets into our chests."
Earlier in March, the third brother Habib Afkari said he has been released from prison but another brother, Vahid, is still in solitary confinement.
Habib had been sentenced to 27 years and 3 months in prison and 74 lashes and was being kept in a windowless solitary confinement cell since Navid’s execution in September 2020.
Navid Afkari was arrested along with his brothers Habib and Vahid during protests in Iran in 2018 and was executed despite international campaigns to save his life.
He initially received a death sentence for an “act of war against God” for his participation in protests, the authorities later charged him and his brothers with the murder of a government employee.
According to the Oslo-based Iran Human Rights in September 2021, Shahin Naseri, a prisoner who testified that Navid Afkari was tortured to confess to the killing, died in custody in Greater Tehran penitentiary “in suspicious circumstances”.
