Kurdish political prisoner Wrisha Moradi ended her hunger strike on 16 May after being returned to the women’s ward of Evin Prison following a three-day detention in Ward 209, a section controlled by the Ministry of Intelligence. Moradi began her hunger strike on 15 May in protest at her transfer.
Pakhshan Azizi, a Kurdish women’s rights activist and fellow inmate, also concluded her hunger strike at the same time.
Azizi began her hunger strike on 14 May, after Moradi’s transfer, and also staged a sit-in in front of the women’s ward guard office. She continued her hunger strike until Moradi’s return but ended the sit-in protest after one day.
The Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) has learned that Moradi was returned to the women’s ward on the afternoon of 16 May but remains denied the right to contact her family and receive visits, as ordered by Judge Salavati of Branch 15 of the Islamic Revolutionary Court in Tehran.
Moradi was originally transferred to Ward 209 on 14 May for a 24-hour interrogation, after which she began her hunger strike to protest the transfer.
Both Moradi and Azizi ended their hunger strikes after the former’s return to the women’s ward.
Background
Moradi was arrested by the Ministry of Intelligence on 1 August 2023 at the entrance to Sanandaj upon her return from Kermanshah, Kermanshah Province, where she had been involved in political and organisational activities.
She spent the first 13 days of her detention in the detention centre of this security institution in Sanandaj, and afterwards was transferred to Ward 209 of Evin Prison in Tehran.
During this time, she was subjected to pressure and threat for forced confessions, and on 26 December 2023, after enduring five months of solitary confinement, she was transferred to the women’s ward of Evin Prison.
Additionally, Azizi, from Mahabad, West Azerbaijan Province, was arrested in Tehran on 4 August along with several members of her family by agents of the Ministry of Intelligence.
While the detained family members were released after a few days of interrogation, Azizi was taken to Ward 209 of Evin Prison.
On 11 December 2023, at the end of her interrogation in Ward 209 of Evin Prison, she was transferred to the women’s ward of Evin Prison.
She was denied the right to have a lawyer and was threatened and pressured by security interrogators to make a forced confession.
The cases of these two Kurdish women have been sent to Branches 15 and 28 of the Islamic Revolutionary Court in Tehran on charges of “armed insurrection” (baghi).
