Home News Human Rights Political Prisoners in Iran Start Hunger Strike in Protest Against Unfair Treatment

Political Prisoners in Iran Start Hunger Strike in Protest Against Unfair Treatment

Farangis Mazloum, mother of political prisoner Sohail Arabi

Ms. Mazloum was arrested because she was defending her son.

Her son, Sohail Arabi, was arrested by agents of the notorious Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in 2013. The father of a young girl and graduate of photography was charged with “apostasy”, “insulting the sanctity”, “propaganda against the state” and “blasphemy against the prophet”.

He has been subjected to long periods of solitary confinement and was handed a long prison sentence and a number of lashes.

To protest the imprisonment of his mother, Soheil Arabi and Haj Jaffar Kashani (another political prisoner) commenced a hunger strike. It started on Friday 20th September.

In an open letter, the two political prisoners emphasized that they do not want their country to be governed by a regime that they described as “tyrannical”. They wrote: “By going on hunger strike, we political prisoners incarcerated in Evin prison will join the opponents of the dictators and we demand the overthrow of this tyrannical regime. Wherever we look, we see poverty, economic divide, and tyranny. Silence is complicity with the tyrants.”

In their letter, they mentioned the case of Sahar Khodayari, a female football fan that was arrested for trying to get around the rule that bans women from entering sports stadiums. She set herself on fire outside a courthouse on learning that she would be imprisoned. She died from her injuries at the beginning of the month.

In their letter, the political prisoners wrote: “Sahar set herself on fire, Farangis cried out in protest, and we will take the sleep away from [the regime’s] eyes with our hunger strike.”

The two men said that the Iranian regime and its fundamentalist policies have “destroyed” their homeland and highlighted that the people have been suffering under its cruelty for four decades.

Referring to political prisoners that have died recently at the hands of the murderous regime, the political prisoners wrote: “The agents of the fundamentalist regime have destroyed our homeland. Our people have been bearing the pain for 40 years. It’s time for freedom. Indeed, we learned from Sahar, Sattar, Gholamreza, Mohammad, Vahid and Mostafa, Saneh, and Alireza that to die standing is better than to live under tyranny.”

The Iranian regime has been mistreating prisoners for many years, and it has ramped up its crackdown on the people.

The Revolutionary Court of Kerman sentenced two female members of the Baha’i faith to five years each on the charge of belonging to the “Baha’i community”. They were each given an additional year in prison on the charge of “spreading propaganda against the state in favor of opposition groups”.

Ethnic and religious minorities are systematically targeted by the regime and face immeasurable discrimination in lots of areas of life, including with regards to education.

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