Four political prisoners on hunger strike in Iran

Iran Focus:

Tehran, Iran, Sep. 11 – Two more political prisoners have joined fellow prisoners in a hunger strike inside one of Iran’s most notorious jails.Valliollah Feiz-Mohammadi and Hojjat Zamani started a hunger strike on Thursday, joining fellow prisoners Bina Darabzand and Behrooz Javid Tehrani. Together they have formed the “Hunger Strike in Raja’i-Shahr Prison Committee”.

Two of the political prisoners, Zamani and Tehrani, had previously been transferred to and continue to be held at the dangerous and violent criminals’ ward of Raja’i-Shahr Prison, where convicted murderers and rapists are held.

Hojjat Zamani, 29, has been imprisoned in Tehran since the year 2000 and was sentenced to death for being a member of the main Iranian opposition group, the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MeK).

Darabzand, 46, was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison for “demonstrating illegally” outside the United Nations building in Tehran in August 2004. He had taken part in a protest by relatives of political prisoners, who were demanding UN intervention to stop torture of their loved ones in prison.

The hunger-strikers’ demands include the transfer of Zamani and Tehrani back to the political prisoners’ ward and for the human rights of all political prisoners to be respected.