Bijan Kazemi, a political prisoner who was arrested eight months ago by agents of the Intelligence Ministry, has been on hunger strike for five days in protest against the violent behavior of security agents at the Intelligence Detention Center in Qom.
Shahnaz Khosravi, the mother of this political prisoner, announced in an Instagram post on Monday, September 22, that her son had informed her in a phone call that he has been on hunger strike since Thursday, September 18.
Khosravi stressed that neither she as a mother nor Kazemi’s lawyer has any information about the reason for his arrest or the charges against him.
She criticized the continued detention of Kazemi in a facility affiliated with the Intelligence Ministry in Qom, writing that according to the law, a detainee should be “under the custody of the Prisons Organization” and “held within the judicial district of their residence or where the alleged crime occurred.”
Khosravi added: “This means [Kazemi] has been held for months in an unofficial detention center without the right to meet his family or access a lawyer.”
Many prisoners in Iran are forced to resort to hunger strikes as their last means to have their demands heard, putting their lives at serious risk.
They often go on hunger strike in protest against the authorities’ failure to address their demands, such as delays in their cases and the violation of their rights as prisoners.
Kazemi’s interrogation session was held in August without the presence of his defense lawyer at Branch 5 of the Prosecutor’s Office in District 33 of Tehran.
On August 5, Khosravi said that at the end of this session, a bail of 40 billion rials (about $40,000) was set for her son, but the case officer opposed his release. She wrote: “I went to the prosecutor’s office to post the bail, but I was told that your son will not be freed that easily.”
On January 19, 2025, Kazemi was arrested after several security agents raided his home in Kuhdasht, searched the house, and confiscated all electronic devices belonging to him and his family members.
High-Ranking Iranian Regime Judges Mohammad Moghiseh and Ali Razini Killed
Kazemi, who had previously been arrested in 2020 and imprisoned for two years, has been denied his legal rights as a political detainee in his latest arrest. Over the past eight months, he has been held in various detention centers, including Ward 209 of Evin Prison (controlled by the Intelligence Ministry), a newly established security detention center at the Greater Tehran Prison, and the Intelligence Ministry’s detention facility in Qom.
Security agents arrested Kazemi on charges of being linked to the killing of Ali Razini and Mohammad Moghiseh, two Iranian regime Supreme Court judges notorious for human rights violations. They are trying to coerce a forced confession from him, alleging that he supplied the shooter with a weapon.
Moghiseh and Razini, two of the most notorious judges of Iran’s regime who had issued death sentences for thousands of people, were killed on January 18 at their workplace in the Supreme Court. The person who killed these two human rights–abusing judges was Farshid Asadi, a janitor at the court complex, who then shot himself and died.
In recent months, the Intelligence Ministry has arrested more than 20 citizens in connection with this case.
