Detained student activist goes on hunger strike

Majid Tavakoli

Majid Tavakoli, detained Iranian student activist has been reportedly transferred to solitary confinement in Evin Prison and has started a hunger strike since three days ago.

The Tavakoli family has expressed grave concern over the detainee’s health and a group of Tavakoli’s peers at Amir Kabir University issued a statement charging the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei with Majid Tavakoli’s well-being.

Majid Tavakoli’s mother announced that she too has started a simultaneous hunger strike along with his son' and she also reported great outpouring of support from people through calls and expressions of sympathy.”

Majid Tavakoli is a member of Amir Kabir University Student Association, who has been sentenced to eight and a half years in prison as well as five years ban from political activity and travel abroad.

Tavakoli was arrested by Islamic Republic security forces during the student protests of last December. The Security Department later released some pictures of him dressed in women’s attire claiming Tavakoli was trying to escape the university campus in disguise.

The release of the pictures, which was taken as an attempt to mock the political activist, gave rise to a campaign of men wearing “hijab” (Islamic female attire) in Tavakoli’s support.

Hundreds of Iranian men posted pictures of themselves dressed in “hijab” on the internet saying: “We are all Majids!”

Majid Tavakoli is charged with "assembly and collusion against the regime as well as insulting the Leadership and the presidency.”

He had been arrested twice prior to his last arrest. First time he spent a year and seven months in prison, and the second time, he was subjected to three months of interrogations while being kept in solitary confinement.