Former board member of the Bundestag, the national parliament of the Federal Republic of Germany, Leo Dautzenberg, spoke at the event, saying, “What the Iranian regime is doing is a cowardly crime. The dictatorship in Tehran is weak, shaken by crises and hated by the Iranian people attempts to cover up its weakness by suppressing the defenseless political prisoners. “

Rally for Solidarity Held in Berlin for Hunger Striking Prisoners of Conscience in Iran

Participants included human rights activists and representatives of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI). They called on Germany and the EU to also take action to bring to justice perpetuators of the 1988 massacre of political prisoners in Iran.

Based on a fatwa by Ayatollah Khomeini, the founder the Iranian regime, some 30,000 political prisoners, most of them members of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK), were executed over a period of just a few weeks in summer of 1988.

The German government was asked to support efforts to urge the United Nations to establish a fact-finding committee is as a first step towards seeking justice for the families of victims of the massacre.

Protesters demanded that German human rights groups condemn the actions of the Iranian regime in Gohardasht Prison, and express solidarity with the prisoners.

In a number of major European cities, similar protests were held, as members of the Iranian diaspora mobilized for prisoners of conscience who are on hunger strike for nearly a month in Iran. Many Iranians went on hunger strikes in solidarity with the political prisoners.

In the forecourt of the ‘Les Invalides in Paris’, human rights defenders sought to alert the international community of the deteriorating state of health of the political prisoners, and the intransigence of the authorities to respond to their basic demands.

Rally for Solidarity Held in Paris for Hunger Striking Prisoners of Conscience in Iran

Widespread support from other political prisoners in other prisons in Iran has amassed. Notably, in Ardebil Prison, it was announced that political prisoners would undertake a seven-day hunger strike in solidarity with their comrades in Gohardacht.

n a secretly transmitted message from the prison, they call on the U.N. Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in Iran, Asma Jahangir, to intervene and pressure the authorities.

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

“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,” Tehran’s Attorney General Abbas Jafari-Dolatabadi said of the initiative of the strikers. He is on the list of European Union sanctions for gross violations of human rights.