June 8, 2005

To: Kofi Annan, Secretary-General of United Nations

Re.: Hunger strike of political prisoners in Iran

IHRAG (Iranian Human Rights Activist Groups in EU and North America) is a non-profit network formed in the fall of 2001 by the independent Iranian associations based in Europe and North America. IHRAG activities are based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as well as UN’s Human rights conventions.

On May30, 2005, political prisoners Bina Darab-Zand, Arjang Davoodi, Hojjat Zamani, and Amir Heshmat Saran, have started a hunger strike, to protest the inhumane conditions governing prisons in Iran, as well as the deterioration of their physical conditions caused by prolong imprisonment. One day later, four more political prisoners, Mohammad Lohrasbi, Khaled Hardani, Vali Feiz-Mahdavi, and Omid Abbasgholi-Nejad have joined the hunger strike. Nine more have threatened to join as well, and it is expected that more and more to do so.

Nasser Zarafshan, attorney for families of the victims of political murders, commonly known as serial murders, started his hunger strike yesterday.

Other political prisoners, Reza Amini, Hemet Hassan Azarpour, Abdollah Mohammadi, Mojtaba Samii-Nejad, and Akbar Ganji, had gone on hunger strike in the past three weeks.

Additionally in the realm of widespread, planned and systematic violations of human rights by Islamic Republic of Iran, in the past two months we have witnessed the following violations:

1) 15 execution; 2) 28 convictions to death sentence; 3) Conviction of one woman to stoning; 4) 2 convictions of decapitation; 5) 11 deaths and 6 injuries due to shootings by security forces; 6) Interrogation, arrest, prosecution, imprisonment, forced exile,… of 54 student activists, 72 journalists, and 65 political, cultural, and labor activists; and 7) 654 other arrests.

Your Excellency,

We, Iranian Human Rights Activist Groups in EU and North America, would like to call your attention to the deplorable conditions of these political prisoners, and urge you to use your good offices to exert pressure on the rulers of the Islamic Republic of Iran to free theses prisoners, whose demands for their rights are in complete accordance with all internationally accepted norms and standards of human rights.

Sincerely,

Iranian Human Rights Activist Groups in EU and North America (IHRAG)

E-mail: IHRNENA@gmail.com

Phone: 1 - 514 – 365 9212 (Canada) or 46 -704-124-500 (Sweden)

Address: BOX 5047, 165 10 Hässelby, Sweden