Concerns over an Iranian scholar’s status in Evin prison

Iran Press News: Translation by Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi.

Students Committee of Human Rights Reporters

Dr. Alireza Sassanian pharmacological researcher was arrested on May 15th, 2005 and has been kept in detention in cell block 2 of ward 209 of Evin prison, in Tehran. Alireza Sassanian Iranian scholar and discoverer of vaccines for various strains of the Mumps, registered his discovery under his own name outside of Iran a while back. He has spent more than a year in prison and has been under constant pressure by the regime’s security institutions to force him to transfer the registration of his discovery from his own name to one of the governmental universities of the Islamic regime.

Despite the fact that a year has passed from the arrest of Dr. Sassanian, in order to block all news related to Dr. Sassanian’s case, the Ministry of Intelligence and Security of the Islamic regime, continues to prevent him from being transferred to a public ward.

Ali Reza Sassanian was first detained, for six months in the solitary cells of ward 209 of Evin prison and was placed under brutal interrogations. His case was then transferred to interrogation branch 14 and finally branch 13 of the Revolutionary¬ court, presided by Mullah judge Salavoti; after 6 months he was found guilty of HARB (combat against god) and sentenced. It is important to clarify that such a verdict carries the sentence of execution; there is now a great deal of concern and fear about the probability of this sentence being carried out and that the Iranian scholar and scientist will be executed.