Hamzeh Darvish enters 14th day of hunger strike in Rasht
Hengaw– Saturday, August 16, 2025
Hamzeh Darvish, a Sunni religious prisoner from Talesh in Gilan province, has entered the fourteenth day of his hunger strike in Lakan Prison, Rasht. He launched the strike to protest authorities’ disregard for his demands.
According to information received by the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, Darvish, 31, began his hunger strike on Saturday, August 2, 2025 in Lakan Prison.
A source close to Darvish’s family said the prisoner began his strike in response to “unjust imprisonment, physical and psychological torture, violation of the principle of separating crimes, and officials’ negligence toward his previous demands.” He is calling to be transferred to the political prisoners’ ward in Ghezel Hesar Prison, Karaj.
In August 2023, the First Branch of the Revolutionary Court in Rasht sentenced Darvish to multiple charges: five years for “assembly and collusion against national security,” five years for “participation in deliberate destruction against the state,” two years for “insulting the Supreme Leader,” two years for “insulting the founder of the Islamic Republic,” and exile to Ramhormoz for “arson of prison property.”
This ruling stemmed from a new case fabricated against him while in prison. He was named the primary defendant in connection with the October 9, 2022 unrest in Lakan Prison, despite being held in solitary confinement at the time and absent from the incident.
The Sunni prisoner had previously, in 2014, been sentenced to 18 years in prison—later reduced to 15 years—on charges of “Waging war against God (moharebeh) through membership in ISIS and illegal exit from the country.”
Darvish was arrested in 2014 after returning from Turkey and Syria. He has remained in detention ever since, repeatedly resorting to suicide attempts and hunger strikes in protest of his case status.
