The hunger strike of nine dervishes from Gonabad in Evin and Shiraz prisons continued for its 13th day. In the sixth day of the hunger strike, some of the prisoners stopped taking their medicine as well.
The striking dervishes have written in their published will: “The enemies of religion and law dressed as executioners of religion and law… are tormenting us to death. We shall not die, but killed, of this hunger strike… and to the testimony of history we shall live forever… in our will we request from all freedom-loving men of the world, especially our Nematollahi Gonabadi brothers, to pursue those who order and who implement these tortures until they fully face justice.”
The imprisoned dervishes have been under the severest of pressures by the henchmen in recent years. In addition to ordinary physical tortures, on many occasions, they have been transferred to the ordinary prisoners’ wards or to solitary confinement and in a heinous and humiliating act their mustaches have been shaved. The striking prisoners Messrs. Hamidreza Moradi Sarvestani, Afshin Karampour, Farshid Yadollahi, Reza Entesari, Amir Eslami, Omid Behrouzi, Mostafa Daneshjou, Mostafa Abdi and Kasra Nouri are demanding the total release of dervishes’ community from prisons and for Iranian regime’s officials to be prosecuted for years of violating the rights of dervishes.
The Iranian Resistance calls on all international bodies and human rights organs to adopt effective measures to save the lives of the striking dervishes and to address their demands.
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
September 11, 2014
