ABC blog

20-year-old Arab activist Hatam Morramazi has died in custody of Iran’s Intelligence Ministry, reports human rights activist Karim Dahimi.

On June 6, Intelligence personnel contacted Morramazi’s family instructing them to report to the facility to recover his body.

Morramazi was an Arab cultural and political activist from Susangerd (known also by its Arabic name, Khafajieh). On June 12, 2017, he was arrested outside his family residence by Intelligence agents while returning from the home of a relative in the village of Malicheh.

The family’s repeated visits to the Revolutionary Court, public relations office, and other security agencies produced no results. These institutions claimed they had no information regarding the arrest.

Some of those arrested by Intelligence agents in Ahwaz in December 2017 and January 2018 saw Marmazi in custody, and even reported so to his family. Authorities, for their part, gave no news to the family a year after the arrest.

Two of Morramazi’s co-defendants were transferred to Sheyban and Fajr Dezful prisons a few months after arrest.