London, October 03: Two Iranian lovers have committed suicide after being imprisoned for being friends of a human rights activist, a media report said Sunday.
Nahal Sahabi, 28, and her boyfriend Behnam Ganji, 22, who were both active bloggers, committed suicide.
Ganji was detained for eight days, while Sahabi was held for three days, Daily Mail reported.
Ganji was a science student at Tehran University and lived with his human rights activist friend Koohyar Goudarzi, 26. Goudarzi had been previously arrested in demonstrations after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s re-election in 2009.
On their hunt for Goudarzi, security agents raided their flat and arrested both of them, Mail said quoting The Times.
They were taken to Tehran’s infamous Evin prison July 31, followed by Sahabi and Goudarzi’s mother shortly after their arrests.
Ganji said to have come out “a broken man” after the ordeal and would not talk to, see or take calls from anyone.
One of his friends told the newspaper that Ganji and Goudarzi were raped in front of each other by guards.
Ganji committed suicide in his flat Sep 1 with an overdose of prescription drugs.
Sahabi, a kindergarten teacher, was apparently not as traumatised as her boyfriend after being released by interrogators, but lived in constant fear of rape after guards threatened to “dishonour” her.
When she found out of her lover’s suicide, she was devastated. On Thursday, she was found dead in her room at her parents’ house in Tehran after also taking an overdose.
Goudarzi however, has not been seen since his arrest and his lawyer told the Guardian by phone that he is still missing, according to the Mail.
–IANS–