The Committee to Protect Bloggers is reporting that blogger Omid Reza Mir Sayafi has died in prison in Iran. Omid was sentenced in December to three years in jail.  Omid was accused of “insulting Iranian religious leaders and spreading propaganda” against the Iranian state.

Human Rights Activists in Iran (translated from Arabic by Hamid Tehrani at Global Voices Online) says “the reason for his death has not been announced but he was in very bad psychological condition.”

The CPB takes the conjecture a step further: “Considering torture and other types of mistreatment are par for the course for free speech prisoners in Iranian prisons, Omir’s death may well have been a direct result of Iranian government actions. Considering the government usually places bloggers in prison with the most dangerous criminals, his death may only have been an indirect result. Either way, the men of the government of Iran and its prisons have a lot to answer for.”

We will update this story as we are able to confirm the circumstances of Omid’s death.