Iranians Launch Twitter Campaign In Support Of Hunger Striking Prisoner

Social media users have launched a twitter campaign in support of Iranian political prisoner Soheila Hijab who has embarked on a hunger strike.

According to some social media accounts which shared the hashtag #SoheilaHungerStrike, Sunday night, the lawyer and human rights activist has been on another hunger strike for days to demand her basic rights as a political prisoner.

“I see no choice but to begin another hunger strike. The officials refuse to give me my furlough despite medical advice. I have lost the use of some of my organs in previous strikes, but see no other choice”, she was quoted as saying in a letter.

Suffering from Covid late in February, the constitutional monarchist was temporarily transferred to a critical care unit (CCU) at a Kermanshah hospital following cardiac arrest after days of neglect in the prison.

Hejab was sentenced to 18 years in July 2020 for "propaganda against the regime", "forming a women's rights group" and "calling for a referendum to change the Constitution", by the notorious judge Mohammad Moghiseh.

She was first arrested in Shiraz in January 2018. Hejab who hails from a Kurdish family from Kermanshah was pardoned and freed. She was violently arrested again in June 2019 by IRGC intelligence, taken to Evin prison, and later released on a large bail.

In May 2020 she was arrested again by Revolutionary Guards' Intelligence Organization and was taken to Qarchak Prison for women in the south of the capital. She was then transferred to Kermansah prison in early January.