CNN lenkt den Blick auf 17 im Teheraner Evin-Gefängnis im Hungerstreik befindliche politische Gefangene. Die nach den Unruhen in 2009 festgenommenen Mitglieder des Committee to Protect Journalists und andere Menschenrechtsaktivisten sind in Abteilung 350 des Gefängnisses festgehalten.
„Throwing these prisoners into solitary confinement instead of responding to their legitimate concerns only causes them further harm,“ said a statement from Joe Stork, the deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch.
„They need to be reintegrated back into the general population, get the care they need, and be allowed to contact their loved ones,“ Stork said.
In dem Zusammenhang erinnert der Sender auf seiner Webseite auch an die sieben führenden Bahá’í, deren Haftstrafe erst kürzlich um weitere zwei Monate verlängert worden war. Weiter heißt es:
Iranian authorities have detained more than 45 Baha’is in recent months, and as many as 60 Baha’is are imprisoned in Iran on the basis of their religion beliefs, the U.S. State Department has said. Iranians have also recently detained more than a dozen Christians, according to the State Department.
The Iranian government denies persecuting Baha’is, who number 300,000 and form Iran’s largest non-Muslim religious minority. But the Baha’is say believers in Iran are victims of systematic discrimination and targets of violence.