Reported by PMOI/MEK
Iran, Dec. 28,2018 – The Iranian regime has transferred Mehdi Farahi Shandiz, teacher and political prisoner in Karaj Central Prison, to solitary confinement. Farahi Shandiz has been kept in solitary confinement for an entire week for unknown reasons. There’s no news of his conditions.
Farahi Shandiz has been in prison for eight years and has been under constant torture and persecution by Iranian regime authorities and prison guards. In 2011, Farahi Shandiz was sentenced to three years in prison. But after eight years, he was given an extension until 2023 under trumped-up charges and made-up allegations.
A few weeks ago, Farahi Shandiz sent a message on the occasion of Iran’s National Student’s Day, in which he encouraged his compatriots to keep the flame of protests and uprisings alit.
“Presently, under the evil shadow of the religious dictatorship, it is the students who are uniting with the unprivileged workers of our country by chanting, ‘We are the children of workers, we will stand by their side,’” Farahi Shandiz wrote in his letter. “The religious dictatorship has no other solution than to arrest and torture workers who have taken to the streets to reclaim their most basic rights.”
Farahi Shandiz expressed his support for the students who have joined the protests of workers of Haft Tapeh and Ahvaz Steel Company to help them in obtaining their overdue wages and restore their trampled rights. “This is a new chapter in creating a society that thrives in freedom and love,” Farahi Shandiz wrote.
“I am proud of these students. I encourage you to stay true to the principles of freedom and strive to establish a society based on freedom of thought and expression. Don’t let the university, the holy bulwark of freedom, be occupied by tyrants,” Farahi Shandiz said.
