Gatherings in Solidarity With Political Prisoners on Hunger Strike in Iran

By NCRI Staff

NCRI - The Iranian diaspora mobilized this Saturday for prisoners of conscience who are on hunger strike for nearly a month in Iran.

In the forecourt of the ‘Les Invalides in Paris’ and in several cities around the world, human rights defenders sought to alert the deteriorating state of health and the intransigence of the authorities to respond to their basic demands.

Political prisoners are protesting against the violence and intimidation of Gohardacht prison guards (Tehran) and all the measures to deprive them of a decent condition of incarceration.

This unprecedented movement has garnered widespread support from other political prisoners in other prisons in Iran. Notably those of the prison of Ardebil, announced to undertake a seven-day hunger strike in solidarity with their comrades in Gohardacht. In their message, secretly transmitted from the prison, they call on the U.N. Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in Iran, Asma Jahangir, to intervene urgently and put pressure on the authorities.

Several human rights activists have sent messages of support. The courageous Professor Mohammad Maleki issued a statement calling for the mobilization of Iranian public opinion, underscoring the need to bring to justice the Iranian authorities involved in the 1988 massacre in Iran.

For his part, Tehran's Attorney General Abbas Jafari-Dolatabadi reacted to the initiative of the strikers. "We say to the prisoners who go on hunger strike and make threats, their action is doomed to failure, because the judiciary will never give up," he told the Iranian media. This mullah is on the list of sanctions of the European Union for gross violations of human rights.