Jailed Iranian journalist Saeed Razavi Faghih, who has been on hunger strike for 13 days, has sewed his lips together to protest the conditions under which he is being held in Evin Prison.

Razavi Faghih, a reformist journalist, suffers from serious heart complications but is being denied adequate medical care in prison. In protest, he went on a hunger strike on March 22, 2016. Now, two weeks later, he has sewed his mouth shut, according to reports by the reformist website Saham News.

Razavi Faghih has been arrested on a number of occasions. He is currently serving a 3.5-year sentence in Iran’s brutal Evin Prison on charges of “insulting the Supreme Leader and the Assembly of Experts” and “propaganda against the regime” for making a speech that was critical of the regime.

According to a source close to Razavi Faghih, he has been told that new charges have been leveled against him that would add even more years to his sentence. However, the case and new charges have not been officially confirmed.

Since his latest arrest in March 2014, Razavi Faghih has been hospitalized several times due to medical neglect in prison. In February 2015, he was sent to a hospital to receive heart surgery. According to reports, he was chained to his hospital bed and banned from having visitors. A picture of him located in the hospital confirms this. Following a short stay in hospital, Faghih was taken back to prison despite doctors stating he was too ill to handle the stress of prison.

On March 1, 2016, he was sent to Tehran Heart Centre for medical treatment but was reportedly returned to jail again.

In the speech that sent him to prison, Razavi Faghih made references to the political unrest, which had taken place after the controversial presidential election of 2009 and rejected official claims that the dispute between the Iranian people and the government was resolved.

Update, April 7, 2016: According to the Iranian news website Kaleme, the reformist journalist was released on Wednesday, April 6, 2016. Read more here.

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