Omidreza Mir Sayafi: "I Want to Resume My Normal Life"

It appears that journalist and blogger Omidreza Mir Sayafi, whose death in Iran's Evin Prison we reported yesterday, committed suicide.

After his sentence of more than two years for insulting Ayatollahs Khameini and Khomeini, Sayafi wrote:

I am a cultural and not a political blogger. Of all the articles I have posted online, only two or three were satirical. I did not mean to insult anyone.

I am worried. The problem is not my sentence of two years in prison. But I am a sensitive person. I will not have the energy to live in prison. I want everything to be like it was before. I want to resume my normal life and continue my studies.

Death of a Blogger: Sayafi dies in Iranian Prison

News is emerging of the death of journalist and blogger Omidreza Mir Sayafi in Evin prison in Iran.

The 29-year-old Safayi's blogs were mostly on music and culture, but he was charged with "insulting Ayatollahs Khomeini and Khamenei" and inciting others against national security. He was sentenced to two years in prison. A pending case accused him of "insulting sacred values".

According to Iranian human rights activists, he was taken to the prison clinic on the morning of 8 March this year in critical condition. According to Safayi's doctor, Hessam Firouzi, "[He] was deeply depressed and prison conditions would have been unbearable for him." The physician added, "The prison doctors were even reluctant to have blood pressure and basic medical tests done. Everything was done because of my persistence at every step of the way"

Iranian officials have not commented on the case.