Change.org Petition: Iranian doctor on hunger strike - Free Iranian Human Rights Defender Dr. Farhad Meysami

Free Iranian Human Rights Defender Dr. Farhad Meysami 2,608 have signed Middle East Matters Organization’s petition. Let’s get to 5,000!

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Farhad Meysami is a doctor, publisher, and civil rights defender who has been on a hunger strike since October 7, 2022, in Rajaee-Shahr Prison in Karaj. He has reportedly lost 53kgs (117lbs). He began with only consuming liquids, but since December 19 has been on a “dry” hunger strike.  Meysami, 53, was arrested in his office in July 2018 and taken to Tehran’s notorious Evin prison for campaigning against compulsory hijab. He was accused of possessing pins stating: “I am against the compulsory hijab.” He was sentenced to six years in prison.  He was charged with “collusion and conspiracy to threaten national security”, “disseminating propaganda against the establishment” and “insulting the hijab, an essential sacrament of Islam”. In a recent letter titled "For the days of suffering and suffering and suffering" Meysami wrote:  “At a time when the rulers have denied the people their rights to a healthy body, livelihood, and dignity, leaving nothing but daily pain and suffering, I have begun my own small contribution, hoping to turn these poisonous times into an antidote with a collective effort." I will still stand by my three demands: stopping the executions of protesters, releasing political-civil prisoners, and stopping forced-hijab harassment, and I will continue my impossible mission in the hope that it may become possible later on with a collective effort." This is not the first time Meysami has gone on a hunger strike in prison to protest social conditions in Iran and advocate for other political prisoners.  In May 2022, he went on a hunger strike to protest the threat of execution of Ahmadreza Djalali, a Brussels university professor with dual Iranian-Swedish citizenship who has been detained in Iran since 2016.  "I don’t want to just oppose Dr. Djalali’s execution, I want to draw attention to something much more important, to draw attention to the fact that they send a man to his death many times and bring him back. Regular and intentional torture like this is definitely a crime against humanity," he wrote last year. Dr. Farhad Meysami’s imprisonment is another reminder of the Islamic Republic’s disregard for human rights. The international community must pressure the Islamic Republic to immediately and unconditionally release Meysami and other prisoners of conscience.

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