NEW YORK, Aug. 2 (UPI) -- A U.S. human rights group plans to call on Iran to let independent investigators look into the death of a jailed Iranian student dissident.
Human Rights Watch calls the death of Akbar Mohammadi suspicious.
Mohammadi, 38, died July 30 after a nine-day hunger strike in Tehran's Evin Prison. The U.S. State Department has condemned the death as part of a government crackdown on dissidents.
Mohammadi is the second inmate to die in the notorious Evin Prison in the past three years, Human Rights Watch said.
Canadian-Iranian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi died while in custody there in 2003. Lawyers for her family allege her body showed signs of torture.
Tehran has not charged anyone in her death.
"The failure to prosecute anyone for Kazemi's death underlines the need for an independent inquiry into Mohammadi's death," said Sarah Leah Whitson, a Human Rights Watch director.
The group plans to call for an independent commission composed of Iranian lawyers and medical experts to investigate and report publicly on the circumstances surrounding Mohammadi's death.
