Iranians living in Ireland have expressed concern at the welfare of an Irishman who has been jailed in Iran since October and is now reported to be on hunger strike.
Bernard Phelan (64), originally from Clonmel, Co Tipperary, was jailed during the protests against the Iranian Islamic regime which has brought millions of people out on the street in the country.
Mr Phelan, who works for an Iranian tour operator, lives in France and was travelling on a French passport at the time. He was arrested on October 3rd along with an Iranian colleague, but no charges were brought against him and he has had no legal representation.
His family believe he has been detained as part of a political dispute between the French and Iranian governments. He was visited by the French consul on Tuesday at the notorious Vakil-Abab Prison in Mashhad, northeast Iran.
According to his sister Caroline Phelan, he is being held in a cell with 16 other prisoners, some of whom have been sentenced for execution. The windows in his cell are broken and the temperature is minus 5 degrees outside. He is in poor health and has a heart problem. He has been refusing food since New Year’s Day.
The Irish Iranian Community & SEFI (Support Equality & Freedom for Iran) demonstrated outside Leinster House on Thursday calling for his release and for an end to the regime which has presided over widespread human rights abuses, particularly against women.
They have asked Ireland to expel the Iranian ambassador and to support regime change in Iran. Largescale street demonstrations have been taking place in Iran since the death in custody of 22-year-old woman Mahsa Amini while in the custody of the country’s so-called morality police.
Demonstrators outside Leinster House chanted the protest movement’s slogan Women, Life, Freedom and carried nooses to symbolise all the executions that have taken place in Iran since the protests began.
Since September 17th, over 19,000 individuals have been arrested and to date 690 of them have been sentenced to death, according to the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA). At least 519 protesters and 68 security personnel have been killed in the unrest, HRANA believes.
Protester Nima Emami said Ireland should be able to use its “big voice” as a member of the EU “to free Iran from the terrorist government and dictatorship that has been in power for the last 44 years and has been acting against humanity all over the world.
“If you stop doing business with Iran, if you tell Europeans to stop doing business with the oligarchs who are working for this terrorist state, then we are very close to the goals of our revolution.”
He said the majority of people in Iran are looking for regime change as the treatment of women in the country is “appalling” and they have no freedoms.
