Warisheh Moradi, aka Joanna Sine, a member of the Free Women’s Society of East Kurdistan (KJAR) accused of baghi (rebellion against God) and currently held in the women’s wing of Iran’s notorious Evin Prison, has declared an indefinite hunger strike.
According to the Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN), Moradi, a Kurdish political prisoner, began her hunger strike on the approach to the International Day Against the Death Penalty, 10 October, in protest against death sentences issued and executed by the Islamic Republic of Iran and also in response to her own unresolved legal status.
Lawyer and former political prisoner Nasrin Sotoudeh announced in a statement on 10 October that she too will join the hunger strike, and stage a sit-in outside the Revolutionary Court in Rasht if the death sentence against Sharife Mohammadi is not overturned.
Another former political prisoner, Farhad Maythami, also stated that he would conduct a sit-in and hunger strike outside the Revolutionary Court in Rasht should the sentence against Mohammadi be carried out. Mohammadi faces the death penalty, also on a charge of baghi. Her association with the “Coordinating Committee to Help Establish Labour Organisations” has been cited as evidence, and the Revolutionary Court has additionally charged her with membership in the Komala Party (the Iranian Communist Party) in Iranian Kurdistan.
The campaign to save labour activist Sharifeh Mohammadi announced on 8 October that rising calls to halt her execution represent a powerful statement against the government’s premeditated killings.
A report by Amnesty International records that at least 853 people were executed in Iran in 2023 – an increase of 48% from the previous year – which the organisation attributes to an Iranian government strategy of instilling fear among citizens to suppress opposition to the regime.
Amid this surge in executions, numerous political prisoners have been rallying behind the “No to Execution” campaign, striving from within prison walls to attract the attention of the international community to Iran’s ongoing use of the death penalty.
Mohammadi and Kurdish socio-political activist, Pakshan Azizi are two political prisoners currently sentenced to death for baghi. The case of Warisheh Moradi remains pending before the court.
