A jailed Kurdish language teacher and a number of other activists have launched a hunger strike to demand freedom for Kurdish prisoners in Iran and protest torture and mistreatment in the prison, Iran Wire reported.
Zahra Mohammadi, a teacher and founding member of the Nozhin Cultural and Social Association, began the hunger strike with other Kurdish detainees at Sanandaj Prison as nationwide protests continue to rock the country after the killing of Kurdish 22-year-old Mahsa (Jîna) Amini.
Last December, Mohammadi, 29, was handed a five-year prison sentence for her political activism, which includes teaching the Kurdish language to children.
Mohammadi is the director of the Nozhin (Nûjîn) Socio-Cultural Association, an NGO which was established in 2011 and certified by the Iranian Ministry of Interior in 2013.
Jîna Mosares-Gorji, another well-known women’s right activist in Kurdistan province, is also among the other prisoners involved in the hunger strike at the prison to protest the mistreatment of recently detained women by the Sanandaj Prison authorities, Hengaw reported.
Security officials had reportedly threatened in advance to arrest Mosares-Gorji if she took part in the protests against the morality police’s killing of Mahsa Amini. Mosares-Gorji was detained on 21 September.
Amini’s killing after her arrest for allegedly wearing her hijab improperly has sparked a wave of protests, both in Iran’s mostly Kurdish western provinces and across other parts of the country.
The protests reached their 10th day on Monday, despite harsh police interventions claiming at least 41 lives.
As the protests spread across 31 cities, 739 protesters including 60 women were arrested in Gilan city alone on 25 September.