On Wednesday, January 24th, 2024, Zeinab Jalalian, a Kurdish political prisoner who is in Yazd prison, announced that she will go on a hunger strike to protest the execution of Mohammad Ghobadlou and Farhad Salimi, two other political prisoners.
According to the Campaign for the Defense of Political and Civil Prisoners, the death sentence of Mohammad Ghobadlou and Farhad Salimi, two political prisoners, was performed at dawn on Tuesday, January 23rd, 2024. These two prisoners were arrested and sentenced to death on charges of “action against national security” and “murder of a security officer”.
Zainab Jalalian in a message that she published from Yazd prison: “I will go on a hunger strike to protest the execution of Mohammad Ghobadlou and Farhad Salimi, two political prisoners. These executions are another crime committed by the Iranian government in order to suppress political opponents. “
Zeinab Jalalian has also gone on hunger strike several times in protest of human rights violations in Iran.
Zainab Jalalian’s hunger strike after the execution of Mohammad Ghobadlou and Farhad Salimi has provoked many reactions inside and outside of Iran. Many human rights and political activists have considered this hunger strike as a brave action in line with the defense of human rights.
Following the execution of Mohammad Ghobadlou and Farhad Salimi, 61 political and ethical prisoners in the Evin Prison women’s ward also announced that they will go on a “hunger strike”, “to protest the execution and to stop the execution” starting Thursday, January 25th, 2024.
Zeinab Jalalian, born in 1983, is an Iranian Kurdish political activist, who was sentenced to death in 2010 on the charge of moharebeh through being a member of the Pejak group.
Her sentence was reduced to life imprisonment in 1390. Zainab Jalalian has been in prison since 2006 and has the heaviest sentence (life imprisonment) among female political prisoners.
Jalalian has been in prison since 2012 without any temporary leave, and her family says that their pursuits for their daughter’s temporary leave have been unsuccessful so far. Zainab Jalalian is currently imprisoned in Yazd prison.