WASHINGTON – Supporters of dissident Iranian journalist Akbar Ganji say he is approaching death inside the Tehran hospital to which he was rushed last month after losing consciousness at Evin Prison from his hunger strike.

A spokesman for Tahkim Vahdat, the largest student organization inside Iran, said yesterday that Mr. Ganji was on his “deathbed.” “His wife and children begged Ganji to allow the serum to be connected back to his veins,” Akbar Atri said in an interview from Connecticut yesterday. “But he refused.”

Mr. Atri spoke to The New York Sun yesterday on behalf of Tahkim Vahdat leaders in Tehran who had provided him with an account of a Friday visit to Milad Hospital by Mr. Ganji’s wife, Massoumeh Shafieh, and family. Tahkim Vahdat has been allied with Mr. Ganji since 2000, when he was first arrested for attending a conference in Berlin and publishing articles and a book that pinned the murders of intellectuals on Islamic Republic leaders.

“He has slipped in and out of consciousness,” Mr. Atri said. “We are afraid that his hours are numbered.” Mr. Atri said that Tehran prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi chaperoned the family visit: “Saeed Mortazavi was present in the room for the visit. Mortazavi cursed Ganji’s wife and then Ganji refused the connection.”

Mr. Ganji has been on hunger strike since June 11, when he was rearrested after leaving Evin Prison to undergo asthma treatment. While out of prison, he gave an interview with Rooz online calling on fellow Iranians to boycott Iran’s June presidential election. Since re-entering prison, Mr. Ganji has held to a diet of sugar cubes and water.

On July 18, Mr. Ganji was rushed to Milad Hospital following reports that he had fallen unconscious. Since then, Mr. Ganji has been attached to what was believed to be a sodium solution while unconscious. Upon regaining consciousness, he has refused the intravenous connections, Mr. Atri said yesterday. Mr. Ganji is demanding his unconditional release from prison. In letters smuggled out of prison and his hospital, Mr. Ganji has refused to ask for forgiveness from supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the man he has said must step down.

In recent weeks Mr. Ganji’s case has been championed by President Bush and former political prisoners such as Natan Sharansky and Vaclav Havel. International pressure has mounted to the point where even Iran’s outgoing president, Mohammed Khatemi, has called for Mr. Ganji’s release.

“We hope that this brave man representing the hope of the future and resistance against the Islamic Republic of Iran does not die,” Mr. Atri said. “If, God forbid, that happens, that should be the trigger for the downfall of the Islamic Republic of Iran that we know today.”