(Paris) Thirty-four Iranian female prisoners have started a hunger strike to “commemorate” the second anniversary of the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement and the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, arrested for not respecting the strict Islamic dress code, announced Narges Mohammadi.
The Iranian Nobel Peace Prize winner, who has been detained since November 2021, said on X that “once again, the political and ideological prisoners of Evin (a penitentiary center near Tehran, editor’s note) have started a hunger strike in solidarity with the people protesting in Iran against the oppressive policies of the government.”
“Today, September 15, 2024, 34 political prisoners started a hunger strike in commemoration of the second anniversary of the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement and the murder of Mahsa (Jina) Amini,” she wrote on the account managed by her family.
“We reaffirm our commitment to establishing democracy, freedom and equality and to defeating theocratic despotism. Today, we raise our voices louder and strengthen our resolve,” she said.
For months after Mahsa Amini’s death in custody, protests against compulsory veiling and religious conservatism shook the Iranian regime, which methodically crushed them: at least 551 people were killed and thousands more arrested, according to human rights NGOs.
Ten men have also been executed in cases related to “Woman, Life, Freedom,” the last of whom, Gholamreza Rasaei, 34, was hanged in August, days after the new president, Massoud Pezeshkian, took office.
Human rights groups also denounce the increase in executions for all types of offences, intended to create fear and dissuade opponents from any desire to protest. Narges Mohammadi, 52, winner of the 2023 Nobel Prize in particular for her fight against the death penalty, has been imprisoned since November 2021 and has spent a large part of the last decade in prison.
The Iranian activist was sentenced in June to another one-year prison term for “propaganda against the state,” adding to a long list of other charges, for which she received a sentence of 12 years and three months in prison, 154 lashes, two years in exile, and various social and criminal sanctions.