Iranian Dissidents in Prison are Forced to Resort To Hunger Strike : Ghazal Omid

In United States prisons, the Constitutional proscription against "cruel and unusual punishment" is not just a theoretical ideal, it is a belief enacted in daily practice. The United Kingdom is justifiably horrified at the treatment the sons and daughter of their nation experienced at the hands of their Iranian captors; however, the conditions Iranian citizens face in prisons there are far worse. In Iran, the very policies regarding housing of political prisoners are themselves a form of repression that Iran in no way seeks to hide from the civilized world. I am personally involved in the cases of thirty-one political prisoners languishing in nine of the most horrific prisons in the world, located in eight major Iranian cities. These prisoners began a hunger strike on April 7, 2007, protesting the brutal conditions in which they are being held. Hunger strikes are the last resort of these prisoners, whose only crimes have been to speak out against government policies in protests. Article 27 of the Iranian constitution guarantees freedom of peaceful assembly; however, Iranian judges conveniently skip this established precept of Iranian law. (Source: http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Constitution_of_Islamic_Republic_of_Iran#Article_27)
Prisoners in these nine prisons (Evin and Raji Shahr prisons in greater Tehran; Bandar Abbas; Isfahan; Birjan; Semnan; Ahwaz, Oromieh in Tabriz; and Khorasan in Mashhad) have vowed to continue their hunger strike to expose these intolerable conditions. These hunger strikes became necessary because the United Nations, Amnesty International, and the International Red Cross/Red Crescent have obviously ignored their official obligations to frequently inspect prisons to ensure basic human rights including medical treatment and visitation rights. For the past month-and-a-half, these thirty-one political prisoners have been allowed no visitation from their families. Additionally, the government is refusing their basic medical requirements, and prison guards have denied these prisoners' own family members basic contact. Prison officials have even refused to deliver medication, upon which some of these prisoners' lives depend, in blatant violation of human rights standards. Hygiene in the prisons is non-existent; the smell of urine is overwhelming. Even though prisoners have begged to be allowed to spend their own meager funds to buy cleaning supplies to try to clean up their own cells, only within the walls of Evin Prison has this simple request for humane conditions been allowed granted. The prisons are infested with cockroaches and biting insects, and those who do not have beds must sleep on filth-mired floors. Evin Prison, which has historically been one of the worst in the world, seems to be a luxury prison in comparison to conditions inside Raji Shahr or Bandar Abbas. The heating systems in these prisons have been disabled all through the cold winter months. Prisoners have to ask their families to bring them jackets to keep warm; these requests, of course, only come to fruition when the officials allow these requests to be granted. Additionally, prisons such as Bandar Abbas and Ahvaz are death traps for prisoners; small barred cells have no air conditioning in 140-degree Fahrenheit temperatures. Families have to pay prison guards for dirty ice to help their loved ones survive. The food is disgusting, noxious and virtually inedible. Reports are rife of foodstuffs contaminated with rodent droppings and crawling with cockroaches. It is not surprising to some that the prisoners would refuse food under these circumstances, but as any American POW who suffered for years in notorious North Vietnamese prisons like the "Hanoi Hilton" will report, when starving, even food of this deplorable variety can mean the difference between life and death. Hunger strikes are not unknown in Iranian prisons. Human Rights Watch reports another hunger strike, this time by female prisoners, begun on March 6, 2007. Twenty-six women were arrested March 4, 2007 outside the Revolutionary Courts building in Tehran, protesting the trial of four additional women for a 2006 peaceful protest of discriminatory laws against women. (http://hrw.org/english/docs/2007/03/07/iran15452.htm) .US President George W Bush, in his inaugural address at the beginning of his second term, gave a glimmer of hope to the voices of freedom incarcerated for their beliefs: "America will not pretend that jailed dissidents prefer their chains, or that women welcome humiliation and servitude, or that any human being aspires to live at the mercy of bullies." (http://usinfo.state.gov/special/Archive/2005/Jan/20-603979.html) However, this inspiring rhetoric can ring hollow to those living, right now, in Iranian prisons, subjected to treatment that most Americans would not allow animals to suffer. I speak for these political prisoners who pray daily for Western help. The consequences of quiet acquiescence and apathetic acceptance of this type of barbarism means that these prisoners, and others, are going to die for standing up to the Iranian regime. Edmund Burke's admonition, "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing," is particularly applicable in this case. Silence only extends their suffering. These prisoners need our help, and they need it now.
Ghazal Omid is an author of Living in Hell, human rights and women's rights advocate, and an expert on Iran and Shiah Islam.