Two political activists on hunger strike in Tabriz and Evin prisons

Siamak Mirzaei and Habib Sasanian, two Turkish political activists who are serving time in Evin and Tabriz prisons, have been on a hunger strike for more than two weeks.

Habib Sasanian was arrested in May last year along with five other people on charges of espionage. The Chief Justice of East Azerbaijan Province introduced them as members of the "GAMO separatist group" and stated that they "collected classified military and economic documents and provided them to the enemies of the regime."

Ultimately, all members of this group were released from Tabriz Prison after posting bail, except for Habib Sasanian, who is still being detained in Ward 12 of Tabriz Prison.

Naqi Mahmoudi, a lawyer living in Germany and a former defense attorney for some civil activists, said in an interview with Radio Farda that "despite holding several hearings in the second branch of the Tabriz Revolutionary Court, headed by Hamid Bagherpour, a verdict has not yet been issued for Habib Sasanian. Sasanian is in poor physical condition in Tabriz prison on the seventeenth day of his protest hunger strike. He has been transferred to the prison's health center several times in recent days due to his deteriorating condition."

Siamak Mirzaei has also been sentenced to ten years in prison and two years in exile in Tabas city by the Baharestan Revolutionary Court, presided over by Bahram Hassani (Chief Justice and Special Judge of the Baharestan Revolutionary Court), on the charge of "forming a crowd and group to disrupt the country's security."

Mahmoudi says that Siamak Mirzaei's lawyer has appealed the ruling, but so far no decision from the appeals court confirming or overturning the ruling has been communicated to Siamak Mirzaei or his lawyer.

He, who was arrested in Parsabad, Moghan, in July 2016 and transferred to Evin Prison in Tehran, has written and sent an open letter stating that "due to repeated obstructions in the process of handling his case until the bail order is reduced and adjusted, as well as the completion of the deficiencies in the case for the appeals court to be held, he will go on a hunger strike from Saturday, June 17, 2017."

Mahmoudi considers the strike of these two Azerbaijani prisoners in Tabriz and Evin prisons "legitimate" in line with their violated rights and believes that "a prisoner, having become desperate with the legal mechanisms, resorts to his last resort, which is his life."

Source: Radio Farda