Civil activist Hossein Kamangar is on a hunger strike in the Sanandaj Intelligence Agency detention center.

Hossein Kamangar, a imprisoned civil activist who was arrested by Intelligence Department forces in January of last year and transferred to the Sanandaj Intelligence Department detention center, has been on a hunger strike for a week.

A source close to Mr. Kamangar confirmed the news in a brief interview with VOA on Thursday.

Previously, the Campaign for the Defense of Political and Civil Prisoners reported that Hossein Kamangar, a civil and environmental activist from Kamyaran, is still being interrogated in the Sanandaj Intelligence Department detention center to extract a confession after more than six months of detention, and has been on a hunger strike in this security institution since July 17.

According to this report, I was banned from visiting and not having the right to contact my family since February last year has been cited as the reason for this civil activist's strike.

An informed source told the campaign: "After Mr. Kamangar was arrested by security agencies, a 45-day detention order was issued for him, and since February 7, he has not been allowed to meet with his family due to his failure to cooperate with security interrogators to extract forced confessions."

This informed source said: After the arrest of this civil activist, his family was initially told that Mr. Kamangar was arrested for being a member of the National Unity Party, but after a while the reason for his arrest was announced as his cooperation with one of the Kurdish opposition parties in Iran and his participation in the murder of the ambulance driver.

Hossein Kamangar was arrested on January 5, 2018, along with a number of other environmental and civil activists, using physical violence by agents of the Sanandaj Intelligence Department in Kamyaran and transferred to the Intelligence Detention Center in Sanandaj.

Previously, the deputy for political, security, and law enforcement of the Kurdistan Governorate accused these individuals of somehow having a role in the murder of an ambulance driver in July of this year, and said that these environmental activists were arrested in the continuation of the investigation to identify the killers of the ambulance driver.

Source: Voice of America