June 18th, 2011
Security agents prevented the funeral of imprisoned journalist Hoda Saberi from taking place at 7:30am today. Saberi was an Iranian journalist, translator and political activist who died three days ago during a hunger strike, The agents completely surrounded the family and funeral organizers until mid-afternoon. After many hours waiting among heavy security and military forces shouting abusive language, the Saber family began the funeral around noon at Tehran’s Behesht-e-Zahra Cemetary, section 100, row 165. The death prayer of martyred journalist Reza Hoda Saber was undertaken behind the ablutions compound at Tehran’s Behesht-e-Zahra cemetery surrounded by security forces and under heavy video surveillance. Saber was then buried.
Journalist and political activist Reza Hoda Saber, who was imprisoned with other political activists at Evin Prison’s Section 300, died three days ago from a heart attack during his hunger strike. Officers on Friday transferred him from Evin Prison to the Modarres Hospital because of Saber’s heart failure, but Saber subsequently died. Hoda Saber and Amir Khosrow Dalir Thani, two religious-nationalist activists imprisoned at Evin Prison’s Section 300 announced that they began their hunger strike on Thursday, June 2, 2011, at sunset to protest the June 1st tragedy in which Haleh Sahabi was killed. Sahabi was a member of Mothers for Peace and an Iranian humanitarian and democracy activist during the post-election events two years ago. The hunger strike possibly caused Hoda Saber’s death, but currently no exact information about the condition of protester Amir Khosrow Dalir Thani is available.