Saeed Afkari, the outspoken brother to executed wrestling champion Navid Afkari said that the regime has told his brothers that they must speak out against Navid in order to be released.
Marking Vahid and Habib’s 500 days in solitary confinement, Saeed Afkari tweeted that “The Islamic Republic has told Vahid and Habib that you must speak out against Navid so that we release you, and today is the 500th day of their solitary confinement.”
Jailed Afkari Brothers, Vahid and Habib have been held under inhumane conditions in solitary confinement in Adelabad Prison in Shiraz, Fars Province, for almost 500 days.
They have been charged in connection with anti-state protests in the summer of 2018, despite credible evidence that they were tortured to make false confessions.
Their younger brother, Navid Afkari, 27, was executed over the murder of a security guard during a wave of anti-government protests in 2018. He had been tortured into making a confession.
Afkari’s brothers Vahid and Habib were sentenced to 54 and 27 years in prison in the same case.
However, a review of the evidence points to the fact that the investigation was faulty and incomplete, and left many questions unanswered.
Iranian authorities subjected the brothers to torture and ill treatment from the very beginning of their detention.
Saeed Afkari published a voice recording on his account on Wednesday, in which Vahid Afkari spoke about the torture and oppression he was subjected to.
Vahid consistently rejected all accusations against them and insisted they had committed no crime.
In the voice recording he said: “I have been under various types of torture…They have no evidence against me, but have kept me in prison…I asked the judge do you have evidence? He said we don’t need evidence to issue a verdict. You think this is Switzerland?”
Unbearable prison conditions, and a hopeless judicial process led Vahid Afkari to attempt suicide on at least two occasions since he was arrested and yet the authorities have refused repeated requests by the family to transfer the brothers to a public ward.
Behieh Namjoo, the mother of the Afkari brothers, in a video message on August 30, 2020, that “Vahid has been under so much physical and psychological torture … to force him to implicate Navid.”
Despite evidence of torture against all three brothers, including a detailed report by Amnesty International, the authorities have refused to investigate or prosecute those responsible.
