Iran’s political prisoners plan hunger strike

ImageTehran, Iran, Nov. 22 – Political prisoners in Tehran’s Evin Prison have announced that they will start a hunger strike from Tuesday evening after prison guards attacked prisoners in one of the wards and confiscated their personal property, Iran Focus has learnt.

Guards acting on the orders of the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) beat up political prisoners in Ward 350 of Evin Prison. They confiscated personal property including books and prisoners’ handwritten material, according to the relative of a political prisoner in Evin, who spoke to Iran Focus on condition of anonymity

Prisoners from Ward 350 said that they would all go on hunger strike unless their items were returned back to them by Tuesday afternoon.

Evin Prison was built by the Shah’s regime as a modern security prison to house political dissidents, but it became the Islamic Republic’s most dreaded gulag and the site of numerous political executions.

Separately, there were reports that a dissident journalist from the Kurdish town of Sanandaj, who was jailed following a spate of anti-government protests in the volatile region, sewed his mouth in protest to his detention.

Madi Ahmadi stitched his lips together after a hunger strike to gain his freedom from Marivan Prison proved fruitless.