Iran woman goes on hunger strike after arrest for attending volleyball

A British-Iranian woman being held in Iran’s notorious Evin political prison after her arrest for attending a men’s volleyball match has gone on huger strike.

Ghoncheh Ghavami, a 25-year-old law graduate of London university SOAS, began the protest after being kept in solitary detention for the last 100 days.

Miss Ghavami’s mother, Sousan Moshtaghian, who was born in London and later moved to Iran where she met her surgeon husband, confirmed the hunger strike in a message on her Facebook page.

“Finally yesterday I got to see my Ghoncheh. She said she could no longer tolerate her condition and as such has decided to go on hunger strike,” wrote Mrs Moshtaghian.

“I too am not going to eat until such a time that my Ghoncheh breaks her hunger strike. My God, you are a witness to how I kept my silence for 82 days so my innocent girl comes back home safely. But now that her health and life are in danger I am not going to sit in silence. Please God, end this nightmare for me. Please give me strength to save and release my darling child.”

Miss Ghavami was detained outside the Azadi Stadium in the capital, Tehran, after she and fellow women’s rights campaigners tried to enter the arena to watch an Iran-Italy volleyball match.

Under the country’s restrictive Islamic codes, women are forbidden to mingle with male spectators at sports facilities.

Shiva Nazar Ahari, a leading rights activist, was among the women protesting alongside Miss Ghavami that day. She has written on her Facebook page that their demand simply was to be allowed to enter the stadium.

“We wanted to go to the stadium together. We wanted to go sit on those chairs to scream and cheer for our national team,” she wrote.

The protesters – who all wore white headscarves in defiance of rules demanding dark coloured hijabs – had tried to get through heavy security but were arrested. 

Miss Ghavami was then released on bail, but when she returned a week later to collect her belongings she was arrested and put into solitary confinement.

Iran’s judiciary denies the charges against Ms Ghavami concern the stadium visit, with spokesman Ghulam Hussein Mohseni Ejeyie saying last month that Miss Ghavami has been charged with “propaganda against the regime”.

“Miss Ghavami’s arrest and imprisonment has nothing to do with the issue of sports and women’s participations in stadiums, and is a national security matter, he said.

Last week 300 Iranian human and civil rights activists wrote an open letter to President Hassan Rouhani and reminded him of Miss Ghavami’s “unbearable conditions” and asked him to “act in accordance with your electioneering pledge of defending the rights of Iranian citizens which secured your win”.

Philip Hammond, Britain’s foreign secretary, raised British concerns about her plight with Mohammed Zarif, his Iranian counterpart, at talks at the United Nations in New York. But there is little in practice that Britain can do, as Iran does not recognise dual nationality and sees Miss Ghavami as an Iranian citizen.

Twelve months ago another British citizen, Roya Saberi Negad Nobakht, a 47-year-old housewife from Stockport, was sent to prison on charges of posting messages critical of the president on Facebook. She was arrested shortly after arriving in Iran on holiday.

(The Telegraph)

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