Number of Azerbaijanis on hunger strike in Iran rises to 11

Baku/14.06.21/Turan: Three more activists convicted in Iran joined the hunger strike launched by Azerbaijani prisoners serving sentences in a prison in the city of Ardabil.

According to Anadolu agency, first   the Azerbaijani activist Abbas Lisani, who is serving time in prison in Ardabil started a hunger strike on June 12.

According to local sources, Azerbaijani activists Siyamek Mirzai, Kiyanush Aslani and Bahnam Sheikhi, who are serving their sentences in Tehran's Evin prison, announced their intention to start a hunger strike during a telephone conversation with their relatives. Thus, the convicts supported the hunger strike started by the inmates of the Ardabil prison.

Thus, the number of Azerbaijani activists who started the hunger strike in Iran reached 11.

The reason for the protest was "the detention of convicts for domestic crimes in the cells of political prisoners, cruel treatment by the prison staff and the authorities' indifference to the rights of political prisoners."

Soon another activist Yusuf Kari supported the action. The day before, Kari and Lisani announced that they had started a "death hunger strike."

Then, inmates of the Tehran prison Khalid Pirizadeh, Hussein Hashimi and Mohammed Turkmani joined the hunger strike.

Ethnic Azerbaijanis living in Iran are under pressure to demand guarantees of constitutional rights, such as instruction in their mother tongue. There are about 30 million Azerbaijanis in Iran and they are the second titular ethnic group after the Persians. From the moment the Persian dynasty of Pahlevi came to power in 1925, the policy of assimilation of Azerbaijanis began, which led to uprisings and mass protests. After the Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979, the degree of self-identification of Azerbaijanis and their struggle for recognition as the titular nation began to grow. During last year's Armenian-Azerbaijani war, Iranian Azerbaijanis blocked roads to prevent the supply of goods from Iran to Armenia. The government was forced to take into account these sentiments, and the spiritual leader Ali Khamenei expressed solidarity with them. — 0—