Hunger Strike in Support of the Iranian People and Recently Arrested Political Prisoners
The noble people of Iran have, with their vast presence in the June 12 presidential elections, showed that despite the fundamental faults of the electoral system in Iran, they preferred to change their fate by peaceful and democratic means. Unfortunately the government ruling Iran did not respect the right of Iranian citizens to effectively participate in determining their fate. With widespread fraud, it violated this basic right of the Iranian people on a vast scale and blatantly launched a coup against its own people. Even more regrettably, the government that emerged from the coup resorted to extreme and merciless brutality against the wave of peaceful protests and arrested a large number of political activists, intellectuals, reporters, and ordinary people, in violation of legal procedures, and dispatched them to solitary confinement. According to reliable reports, the detainees are subjected to various forms of extreme psychological and physical pressure to confess to crimes they have not committed.
In solidarity with the Iranian people’s Green Movement and condemning the widespread electoral fraud, the merciless repression of the popular protests, and the illegal arrest of hundreds of citizens and activists in Iran, we the undersigned are going on hunger strike between 22 to 24 June in front of the UN building in New York. We intend to have the voice of the long-suffering Iranian people heard. We ask the responsible members of the world community to demand the release of all the recent arrested prisoners. Considering the alarming condition of the recently detained, with their health and even lives in jeopardy, we demand they be visited by representatives of the General Secretary of the UN and immediately freed.
In addition, we the undersigned call on all our compatriots living in the United States to join this protest, meeting on the above-mentioned dates in front of the UN, to declare their solidarity with Iranian people’s Green Movement during these dangerous and crucial days.
