(CNSNews.com) – Concerns are deepening for the well-being of more than 20 Iranian political prisoners on hunger strike, who reportedly are being denied medical care by authorities who triggered their protest in the first place by forcibly transferring them to accommodation where conditions are described as “unbearable.”
The incident comes in the early weeks of the second term of Iranian President Hasan Rouhani, whose ostensibly “moderate” presidency has been characterized by ongoing repression at
home, include a 20-year high in executions.
Some of those affected at the Gohardasht prison west of Tehran have been on hunger strike for a month now, and political prisoners at other jails have begun to voice support and in some cases have joined the protest action.
According to rights advocates the newly “renovated” section of the Gohardasht facility to which more than 50 prisoners were moved late last month lacks beds and clean drinking water, and the windows are covered by metal limiting air circulation and making it difficult to breathe freely.
The transfer – which was accompanied by guards’ assaults on prisoners unwilling to move – also reportedly deprived the inmates of privately-purchased prescribed medications and personal belongings they were unable to take with them, including personal photographs and letters.
In a penal system where inmates often have to buy food from canteens to supplement the inadequate meals provided, the political prisoners also lost food supplies, kitchenware and a refrigerator.
“They are held in cells with windows covered by metal sheets, and deprived of access to clean drinking water, food and sufficient beds,” Amnesty International reported. “They are also barred from having in-person family visits and denied access to telephones, which are usually available in other parts of the prison.”
Some of the prisoners concerned were identified by Amnesty International as human rights defender Jafar Eghdami, journalist and blogger Saeed Pour Heydar, postgraduate student Hamid Babaei, and Baha’i prisoners Adel Naimi, Farhad Dahandaj and Peyman Koushak Baghi.
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