Kurdish Women Prisoners Launch Hunger Strike

A group of Kurdish female political prisoners have gone on hunger strike in Sanandaj after the killing in custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who was from Kurdistan, and amid ongoing suppression of mass protests across the country.

Zahra Mohammadi, a jailed member of advocacy group the Nozhin Cultural and Social Association, and several other detainees had gone nil by mouth to demand “freedom of all detainees in Kurdistan”, a statement by the Association said.

According to Follow Up Iran, a newly-formed group of activists monitoring the status of people arrested in September 2022, at least 43 people had been arrested in Kurdistan from the beginning of the protests on September 17 to Friday. Of these 20 were students and 11 women’s rights activists.

The Kurdish human rights organization Hengaw, meanwhile, puts the figure at more than 600 in four days. The group says it has so far identified around 100 people. The governor of Kurdistan has confirmed three people have been killed in the province, though the true figure is believed to be far higher. One of them, a resident of the city of Divandareh, had, he said, been "killed by a weapon of war".