Announcement of Hunger Strike by Bahareh Hedayat in Protest of the Death of Javad Rouhi in Prison

Bahareh Hedayat, a political activist and prisoner in Evin prison, has gone on a hunger strike in protest against the "increased repression of the Islamic Republic" on the eve of the anniversary of the "murder of the Daughter of Iran." On Friday, September 1, she announced in a letter: "On the eve of the anniversary of the murder of the Daughter of Iran, Mahsa (Zhina) Amini, her murderers have intensified their repression to erase her name from our memories and our conscience. They think that the name of freedom can be erased and that the dream of imprisoning consciences can be realized." In her letter, she continued: "The totalitarian government always tries to normalize the upside-down world it has created. It tries to normalize the fact that hundreds and thousands of young people of this land have been killed for the crime of dancing like Javad Rouhi and Khodamnoor, for the crime of a waking conscience like Nika and Sarina. It tries to normalize the fact that it has crushed the university from students to professors and that, on the eve of the anniversary of Mahsa, it has relentlessly suppressed grieving families." This political activist also added: "In the meantime, the injustice that weighs on the collective conscience of us—perhaps due to the proximity of events—is the accusation of collaboration with foreign governments against Niloufar Hamedi and Elaheh Mohammadi. Much has been said and written about these two, rightly so. But what I see, regardless of individuals and titles, is the efforts of the oppressors to imprison and cage the same conscience that these two, inspired by it, fully carried out their journalistic duty on September 25, 2022. And this collective waking conscience has been put on trial to this day, with the murderers sitting on the other side of the courtroom. In the end, Bahareh Hedayat stated from Evin prison: "In accordance with that conscience and to protect it, for the freedom of Elaheh and Niloufar as symbols of the proud movement of women, life, freedom, in protest against the killing of Javad Rouhi in prison, and in support of a year of relentless resistance by the freedom-seeking women of my country, I will go on a hunger strike starting the evening of Thursday, September 8. May this be a small contribution to the threshold of freedom in Iran; this land weary of despotism." Hedayat, who has previously spent seven years in prison, is currently imprisoned in Evin for serving a four-year sentence for protesting the downing of the Ukrainian plane by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. In December 2022, she also stated, "The Islamic Republic must go, because its nature and destiny is destruction."