Iran: Jailed Facebook activist starts hunger strike

Iranian Facebook activist sentenced to 7 years imprisonment for his online political activities, has launched a hunger strike to protest this unjust and brutal sentence. Political prisoner Amir Golestani warned if his requests for conditional release from the prison are not met in 10 days, he will turn his protest into a dry hunger strike, which means no food and no drink until death.
Golestani, born in 1980, was arrested on August 13, 2013 by agents of the Revolutionary Guards intelligence branch at his office in the town of Babolsar. He was the admin of a Facebook page by the name of “A [Despicable] Life” in which he criticized various social and political issues. 
Golestani was held for 110 days in solitary confinement of ward 2A in Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison . He was then sentenced to 20 years and 91 days behind bars in a so-called revolution court chaired by Judge Moghise on charges of “insulting the sanctities, insulting the leader, assembly and collusion against national security and propaganda against the state”. He was one of the eight Facebook activists who were sentenced to a total 128 years in jail. The defendants in this case were from different cities including Yazd, Shiraz, Abadan, Kerman and Tehran. The oldest defendant in this dossier was a 42-year-old woman and the youngest was a 21-year-old man.