Vahid Afkari has been unjustly imprisoned since 2018 for peacefully protesting with his brothers in Iran. He is is being kept in solitary confinement and tortured.
Vahid comes from a close-knit family. During happier times he loved to read and sing, and to dance with his brothers Habib and Navid.
In 2016, 2017 and 2018 Vahid, Navid and Habib peacefully joined protests in their home town of Shiraz calling for an end to inequality and political repression. On 17 September 2018, Vahid and Navid were arrested at their home. Habib was arrested three months later.
Vahid, Navid and Habib were repeatedly tortured and forced to “confess” to crimes they repeatedly told the authorities they did not commit. They were convicted on politically motivated charges for their peaceful participation in protests. Vahid and Navid were also convicted on a baseless accusation involving the murder of a security official . The authorities sentenced Navid to death, and Habib and Vahid to many years in prison and 74 lashes each.
Navid’s death sentence was carried out in September 2020 with no warning to him or his family. His killing ignited outrage in Iran and throughout the world, leading to escalated campaigning for Habib and Vahid. Habib was released from prison in March 2022, after spending 550 days in solitary confinement.
The authorities have been cruelly holding Vahid in solitary confinement since September 2020, isolating him from other prisonerss to punish him for not bending to the authorities’ demands to make public statements against people in Iran and around the world who have sought justice for his family.
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