Hunger strike that shames Iran's so_called moderates

Dr:Majid Rafizadeh
Protecting and promoting human rights is one of the major promises that Hassan Rouhani and the so-called moderates continue to give to the people of Iran. As Rouhani enters his fifth year as president, however, not only has Iran’s human rights record not improved, evidence suggests it has significantly deteriorated, particularly when it comes to the situation of minorities such as Sunnis.   
A major area that requires more global attention is the plight of political prisoners, journalists and human rights activists in jail. Specifically, what is happening to them behind the walls of Iran’s prisons?
Last month, inmates in Hall 12 of Gohardasht prison, also known as Rajai Shahr, 20km west of Tehran, were subjected to a violent and unexplained raid that led to more than 50 prisoners being transferred to Hall 10, where conditions and treatment were even worse.
Hall 10 had been newly renovated before the raid, apparently with the explicit intention of putting more pressure on the prisoners of conscience who the Iranian regime was planning to transfer there.The prisoners are subject to 24-hour video and audio surveillance, even inside private cells and bathrooms. Windows have been covered over with metal sheeting, reducing airflow during summer in a place already known for its inhumane and unhygienic conditions.
In addition, the raid involved the confiscation or outright theft of virtually all the inmates’ personal belongings, including prescription medication. Since then, prison authorities have denied the prisoners access to medical treatment and have even blocked the delivery of expensive medication purchased for them by families outside the prison. Withholding medical treatment is a well-established tactic by Iranian authorities to exert pressure on political prisoners, especially those who continue activism from jail or strive to expose the conditions that political prisoners and other detainees face.
Despite the fact that their newfound stress and lack of sanitation already threatened to have a severe impact on their health, more than a dozen of the raid’s victims immediately organized a hunger strike and declared that the protest would continue until they were transferred back to their former surroundings and had their belongings returned to them.
Others joined the protest, and at the last count 22 detainees were participating in the hunger strike, most of them serving sentences for political crimes such as supporting the leading banned opposition group, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran. The core group have been starving themselves for approximately a month now, and their health has predictably deteriorated.