Mehdi Khazali, a jailed Iranian physician and blogger, has begun his sixth round of a hunger strike in Evin Prison.
The Kaleme website reported on January 11 that Mehdi Khazali has been refusing food since nine days ago and he has been transferred to solitary confinement by Evin authorities.
Mehdi Khazali was last arrested in November of 2012 after security forces attacked a writer’s gathering.
Kaleme reports that Khazali had broken his earlier strike when prison authorities promised to meet his demands. However, a lack of commitment to those promises and the persistent “illegal treatment of prisoners by the interrogators and judiciary officials” have led Khazali into another hunger strike.
Mehdi Khazali has been critical of the government in his blogs, and that has earned him 14 years in jail. He is also sentenced to 90 lashes.
Khazali is the son of Abolghasem Khazali, a hardline member of the Assembly of Experts, and the senior Khazali has disowned his son for his reformist stance in politics.
