{"id":5371,"date":"2016-08-30T23:13:11","date_gmt":"2016-08-31T04:13:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/?p=5371"},"modified":"2016-08-30T23:13:11","modified_gmt":"2016-08-31T04:13:11","slug":"canadian-professor-homa-hoodfar-hospitalized-in-iran-as-health-rapidly-declining-film","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/5371\/","title":{"rendered":"Canadian professor Homa Hoodfar hospitalized in Iran as health \u2018rapidly declining\u2019 + Film"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #333399;\">Global News<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">A Montreal-based university professor imprisoned in Iran has been hospitalized due to \u201crapidly declining health,\u201d according to her family.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>In a statement released Tuesday, Homa Hoodfar\u2019s family said the 65-year-old was\u00a0disoriented, severely weakened, and could hardly walk or talk. Her family also claims requests for a check-up by a specialist have been ignored and it\u2019s unclear if she is receiving her medication regularly.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<span class=\"a\">The continued solitary incarceration\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"a\">and the illegal psychological pressure applied by the presiding judge to break her and confess to\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"a\">these fabricated charges are of great concern to professor Hoodfar\u2019s family, friends, and the\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"a\">thousands of colleagues and activists worldwide who have signed petitions and letters of protests\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"a\">against the outrageous treatment of this renowned scholar,\u201d read the statement.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Hoodfar traveled to Iran to visit family and conduct academic research in February.\u00a0She was initially arrested in March, shortly before she was to return home, but was released on bail. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard seized her passports \u2014 she holds Canadian, Iranian and Irish passports \u2014 along with a computer and iPad, and subjected her to repeated day-long interrogations about her work and research.<\/p>\n<p>She was arrested again on June 6 and\u00a0charged with collaborating with a hostile government against national security and of propaganda against the state.<\/p>\n<p>She is being held in\u00a0Evin prison \u2014 a place associated with acts of torture, solitary confinement and forced confessions.<\/p>\n<p><strong>WATCH:\u00a0Family concerned for Homa Hoodfar, Concordia professor detained in Iran<\/strong><\/p>\n<div style=\"width: 960px;\" class=\"wp-video\"><video class=\"wp-video-shortcode\" id=\"video-5371-1\" width=\"960\" height=\"540\" preload=\"metadata\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"video\/mp4\" src=\"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Canadian-professor-Homa-Hoodfar-hospitalized-in-Iran-as-heal.mp4?_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Canadian-professor-Homa-Hoodfar-hospitalized-in-Iran-as-heal.mp4\">https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Canadian-professor-Homa-Hoodfar-hospitalized-in-Iran-as-heal.mp4<\/a><\/video><\/div>\n<p>Hoodfar\u2019s family claims that Iranian officials have violated several laws during Hoodfar\u2019s imprisonment, including preventing her lawyer from having access to her or her case file.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: #000080;\"><span class=\"a\">\u201cGiven the alarming news of Homa\u2019s hospitalization and declining health,<\/span><span class=\"a\">we are left with no choice but to publicize these travesties of justice widely, as it has become\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"a\">clear that the authorities are not prioritizing her health and do not intend to respect Homa\u2019s due<\/span><span class=\"a\">\u00a0process rights under Iranian law,\u201d said\u00a0Amanda Ghahremani,\u00a0Hoodfar\u2019s niece and legal representative in Canada.<\/span><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Hoodfar\u2019s family added they fear prolonged time in solitary confinement could\u00a0\u201cbring her to a point to make a false confession.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Canadian government has previously said it is working to assist in\u00a0Hoodfar\u2019s case; however,\u00a0Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Stephane Dion has acknowledged that not having an embassy complicated matters. Italy has protected Canada\u2019s interests in Iran since 2012.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt would be easier to have an embassy in Iran, but it\u2019s not the case,\u201d Dion said in June.\u00a0\u201cWe will do everything we can [by] working with the like-minded countries that are in Iran.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u2013<em> With files from Nick Logan and The Associated Press<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"article-copyright\">\u00a9\u00a02016\u00a0Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>Global News A Montreal-based university professor imprisoned in Iran has been hospitalized due to \u201crapidly declining health,\u201d according to her family. In a statement released <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/5371\/\" title=\"Canadian professor Homa Hoodfar hospitalized in Iran as health \u2018rapidly declining\u2019 + Film\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5245,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-iran-world","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5371"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5371\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5374,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5371\/revisions\/5374"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}