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Irish man on hunger and water strike in Iran prison
Concern is growing for a man from the Republic of Ireland who is on hunger and water strike in an Iranian prison.
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Bernard Phelan was arrested on 3 October during a wave of antigovernment protests that have seen millions take to the streets.
The 64-year-old is originally from Clonmel, County Tipperary, but grew up in Blackrock, County Dublin.
As a dual-citizen, Mr Phelan was travelling on a French passport at the time.
He was arrested for allegedly taking photographs of police officers and a mosque which had been burned.
He is one of seven French citizens currently detained in Iran and is being held in a cell in Vakilabad Prison in Mashhad, Iran’s second largest city.
Mr Phelan has denied multiple charges including disseminating antiregime propaganda and taking pictures of security services.
He has been on hunger strike since New Year’s Day, protesting his incarceration, and on Tuesday accelerated action by refusing liquids.
Conditions inside the prison are said to be cramped, with 16 people sharing a cell amid freezing night-time temperatures.
It is understood some of Mr Phelan’s block mates have been executed.
There was widespread outrage earlier this week after a British-Iranian citizen, Alireza Akbari, was executed. Mr Akbari had been convicted of spying for the UK, which he denied.
Media caption,
Watch: The protests currently sweeping Iran have their roots in changes made after the 1979 revolution
Mr Phelan’s sister, Caroline MasséPhelan, told The Irish Times she now fears for her brother’s life.
“We want them to let him go. It is of no interest to anybody to keep him as a prisoner. He is very sick now. He has a heart condition, he has a bone condition.
“He has been drinking tea and drinks with sugar in them. Now he has stopped that and we are very worried. It can be fatal.
“He is an Irish citizen who has no beef with Iran,” she said.
Mr Pelan had been living in Paris, France and was in Iran while working for a tourism company.
“All he was doing was promoting Iran as a tourism destination. Both the Irish and French authorities have been working hand in hand in relation to this,” Ms Massé-Phelan said.
When he announced his protest, Mr Phelan said he understand the associated risks and that he would “hold the Iranian government totally responsible for any resulting negative repercussion on [his] health”.
French government officials issued a statement on Mr Phelan’s case on Tuesday.
They confirmed Mr Phelan is one of seven French nationals currently held in Iran, and they are “extremely worried about his health, which is poor and requires appropriate medical monitoring, which is not ensured in detention”.
“We are stepping up the pressure on Iran, in co-ordination with the Irish government, to ensure that our compatriot is released without delay,” the French foreign ministry said.
The Republic of Ireland’s Department of Foreign Affairs said it was “aware of the case and has been providing consular assistance, in close coordination with France, since the outset”.
“The case has also been raised directly with the Iranian authorities, stressing the health condition of Mr Phelan and making the case for his urgent release on humanitarian grounds,” the department added in a statement.
Brendan Phelan has been imprisoned in Iran since October 2022
China’s population falls for first time since 1961
China’s population has fallen for the first time in 60 years, with the national birth rate hitting a record low - 6.77 births per 1,000 people.
The population in 2022 - 1.4118 billion - fell by 850,000 from 2021.
China’s birth rate has been declining for years, prompting a slew of policies to try to slow the trend.
But seven years after scrapping the onechild policy, it has entered what one official described as an “era of negative population growth”.
The birth rate in 2022 was also down from 7.52 in 2021, according to China’s National Bureau of Statistics, which released the figures on Tuesday.
In comparison, in 2021, the United States recorded 11.06 births per 1,000 people, and the United Kingdom, 10.08 births. The birth rate for the same year in India, which is poised to overtake China as the world’s most populous country, was 16.42.
Deaths also outnumbered births for the first time last year in China. The country logged its highest death rate since 1976 - 7.37 deaths per 1,000 people, up from 7.18 the previous year.
Earlier government data had heralded a demographic crisis, which would in the long run shrink China’s labour force and increase the burden on healthcare and other social security costs.
Results from a once-a-decade census announced in 2021 showed China’s population growing at its slowest pace in decades. Populations are also shrinking and ageing in other East Asian countries, such as Japan and South Korea.
“This trend is going to continue and perhaps worsen after Covid,” says Yue Su, principal economist at the Economist Intelligence Unit. Ms Su is among experts who expect China’s population to shrink further through 2023.
“The high youth unemployment rate and weaknesses in income expectations could delay marriage and childbirth plans further, dragging down the number of newborns,” she added.
And the death rate in 2023 is likely to be higher than it was pre-pandemic due to Covid infections, she said. China has seen a surge of cases since it abandoned its zero-Covid policy last month.
China’s population trends over the years have been largely shaped by the controversial one-child policy, which was introduced in 1979 to slow population growth. Families that violated the rules were fined and, in some cases, even lost jobs. In a culture that historically favours boys over girls, the policy had also led to forced abortions and a reportedly skewed gender ratio from the 1980s.
The policy was scrapped in 2016 and married couples were allowed to have two children. In recent years, the Chinese government also offered tax breaks and better maternal healthcare, among other incentives, to reverse, or at least slow, the falling birth rate.
But these policies did not lead to a sustained increase in the births. Some experts say this is because policies that encouraged childbirth were not accompanied by efforts to ease the burden of childcare, such as more help for working mothers or access to education.
In October 2022, Chinese President Xi Jinping made boosting birth rates a priority. Mr Xi said in a once-in-five-year Communist Party Congress in Beijing that his government would “pursue a proactive national strategy” in response to the country’s ageing population.
Apart from dishing out incentives to have children, China should also improve gender equality in households and workplaces, said Bussarawan Teerawichitchainan, director of the National University of Singapore’s Centre for Family and Population Research.
Scandinavian countries have shown that such moves can improve fertility rates, she added.
According to Paul Cheung, Singapore’s former chief statistician, China has “plenty of manpower” and “a lot of lead time” to manage the demographic challenge.
“They are not in a doomsday scenario right away,” he said.
Observers also say merely raising birth rates will not resolve the problems behind China’s slowing growth.
“Boosting fertility is not going to improve productivity or increase domestic consumption in the medium term,” said Stuart Gietel-Basten, a public policy professor at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. Source: BBBC
