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NEWS & LETTERS, August-September 2006Hunger strike for Iranian political prisonersNew York-Iranians living in the U.S. joined Akbar Ganji, a recently released Iranian political prisoner, in a three-day hunger strike in front of the United Nations. To demand that Iran free all "prisoners of conscience" and respect human rights, hunger strikes were held in three cities in Iran and in 18 cities in the U.S., Canada and Europe, July 14-16. Ganji, Iran's leading dissident intellectual, was freed in March after six years in detention, only after he nearly died from a protracted hunger strike. The strikers called for the immediate release of three prominent political prisoners: Ali Akbar Mousavi Khoeni, a student leader and former member of parliament, Dr. Ramin Jahanbegloo, a philosopher, professor and public intellectual, and Mansour Osanloo, a prominent labor leader and executive director of the Worker's Syndicated Union. They and many other people are being detained for peacefully expressing opinions. In Iran, there is no limit to how long one can be held without charge and denied access to a lawyer. Iranians came from around the U.S. for the N.Y. demonstration, which included a rally of 150 supporters. The global hunger strike was organized spontaneously by a variety of groups and people after Ganji announced that he would undertake a hunger strike. Those at the New York location pointed out the importance of the event: it was the first time demonstrations were held simultaneously inside and outside Iran, and it was the first time secular and Muslim groups worked together for human rights. One woman described Ganji to me as "a voice who can lead" because he calls for a separation of religion and state while having a religious background (he was once in the government and turned against it), and because he wants a dialog among all people and religions. Ganji told me, "We are advocating humanistic Islam." Among those present at the event were relatives of political prisoners who were killed in jail. They want the world to know that 5,000 such prisoners were secretly executed in 1989. I spoke with a woman who was arrested with her husband in 1986. He was a doctor who had sometimes criticized the government. Her infant children were put in jail with her. She was released after several months, but he remained in prison and was executed in 1989, along with her sister's husband and 14 of her close friends. I met a young woman whose friends in Tehran participated in a recent women's demonstration that was brutally repressed. "It wasn't even a protest," she said, "just a statement that women should have rights, such as custody of children, and husbands not be allowed to marry four women. My friends, men and women, were beaten and arrested." The hunger strikers issued this statement: "The human rights situation in Iran continues to deteriorate. Petitions and protests to end the abuses have gone unanswered. During the past year, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government has sought to monopolize power in Iran by silencing and suffocating all independent and dissenting voices. The suppression of demonstrators in Azerbaijan, Khuzestan, and Kurdistan, the silencing of labor, women, and student movements and the vicious attacks on demonstrators throughout the past year, are all evidence of the ongoing and abhorrent human rights violations by the Islamic Republic of Iran. "By arresting and imprisoning intellectuals, lawyers, political activists, and labor leaders and by forcing the resignation or early retirement of dozens of university professors, Ahmadinejad's government is pursuing polices that are reminiscent of some of the darkest days of the Islamic Republic. In such an atmosphere, Iran's democracy movement calls for the unity and support of people of conscience from around the world. Without such unity, there is little hope of stemming the appalling human rights violations in Iran and the growing authoritarianism of the regime" (See www.free-political-prisoners.net). -Anne Jaclard |
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