Source:
April 16, 2010

A group of recent Iranian detainees have announced that they will go on a “hunger strike” until their “legal” demands for just and rightful treatment are met by the authorities.

According to a statement published on Jaras website, the prisoners are planning to start their “hunger strike” on April 21 and if their demands are not met, it will continue until the anniversary of the disputed presidential elections in June.

The prisoners are demanding “annulment and reduction of sentences handed to political prisoners, immediate release of all detainees on bail until their trial date and complete adherence to the article 168 of the constitution” which states that all political and media charges will be dealt with in a public trial in the presence of a jury.

The prisoners also demand a review of the “illegal and unjust interrogation, trial and sentencing procedures in all levels and an improvement of the prisoners’ diet, hygiene, well-being and leisure conditions.”

Addressing the “Iranian nation”, the statement carries on to say: “Thousands of your children who supported reformist candidates in the presidential elections have been continuously arrested since the day after June 12 over baseless charges and been transferred from their homes or workplaces to some known and some unknown detention centres and prisons.”

The statement goes on to maintain that after long term imprisonment under “special conditions” and being interrogated “under fierce physical and mental pressure”, the detainees have been sentenced to long term and unjust imprisonment terms in “show trials.”

They contend that many of them have been languishing in prison for close to a year without any trial in complete judicial limbo. They maintain that these prisoners are “deprived of all their legal, Islamic and Human rights” behind bars.

Islamic Republic authorities have arrested over five thousand people in the past ten months to stop protests against the disputed June presidential elections which gave Mahmoud Ahmadinejad another term as the president.

In an interview with Green Prisoners, which is a site run by a group of Iranian journalists, Iranian Nobel Peace Laureate, Shirin Ebadi called for more and more informative reports on the situation of Iranian prisoners.

Ebadi encouraged families of the detainees to make effort to end the incarceration and “illegal pressures” being imposed on their kin by calling on the defense attorneys and granting interviews to the media.

She expressed her belief that the condition of prisoners deteriorates when families fail to inform the public about their situation. She added that despite Islamic Republic claims that they are indifferent to public perception on the international level, this issue is in fact of great concern for them and informing the public about the situation of prisoners will help improve detainee conditions in Iranian prisons.