Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani has appointed a committee to investigate recent deaths in prison custody, including those of at least two protesters and an Iranian-Canadian academic and environmentalist.

The President’s official website announced the enquiry into recent “regrettable incidents in some lock-ups”. The members of the panel are the Interior, Intelligence, and Justice Ministers and the Vice President for legal affairs.

“The committee is tasked with investigating the issues and reporting back to the president about possible negligence in this regard,” the statement said.

In early January, amid nationwide demonstrations, several detainees died in custody. In two of the cases, Iranian authorities declared “suicides”, but families and friends said the deceased bore signs of beatings.

On February 9, Iranian authorities informed the family of Dr Kavous Seyed-Emami, sociology professor at Tehran’s Imam Sadegh University and managing director of the Persian Heritage Wildlife Foundation, that he had died after 15 days in Tehran’s Evin Prison. Officials again claimed “suicide”, eventually showing a film of the detainee to his relatives.

However, the film does not record the claimed hanging, and the family — risking retribution by breaking their silence — have disputed the claims by officials that they accepted the “suicide” verdict and consider the case closed.

See Iran Daily, Feb 14: Family — Officials Lied About Environmentalist’s Death in Custody

Seven other staff of the Persian Heritage Wildfire Foundation, including an Iranian-American dual national, are still imprisoned. Iranian officials have justified the detentions with claims that they and Seyed-Emami were working for the CIA and Israel’s Mossad, that they passed material on an “environmental crisis” to Washington, that they “installed cameras in strategic locations…including missile bases”, and even that they may have used lizards attracting “atomic waves” to spy on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

In a rebuke of the claims, Environment Minister Isa Kalantari challenged Tehran Prosecutor Abbas Jafari Doulatabadi’s allegation that the environmentalists used monitoring of animals as a cover for espionage purposes: “Environmental cameras that monitor leopards’ activity have a range of no more than 50 meters.”

Kalantari’s deputy Kaveh Madani was detained last weekend. He was released on Monday, but may still be under close supervision by security officiers.