HRANA- Political prisoner Reza Malek has begun a dry hunger strike after being transferred to solitary confinement for protesting the inhumane conditions and treatment in Evin Prison.

HRANA has learned that Reza Malek, whose video from Evin Prison was revealed last year by HRANA, began a dry hunger strike five days ago after being transferred to solitary ward 240 approximately twenty days ago, joining seventeen other political prisoners in their hunger strike.

The seventy four year old political prisoner is currently in a dangerous physical state due to his hunger strike.

It is important to note that Reza Malek’s sentence was completed in June 2009; however, the Ministry of Intelligence has prevented his release and has asked the judiciary to increase his sentence.

Student activist Ali Malihi, journalist Bahman Ahmadi Amooei, journalist Hossein Nouraninejad, student activist Abdullah Momeni, student activist Ali Parvis, political activist Hamid Reza Mohammadi, civic activist Jafar Eghdami, student activist Zia Nabavi, civic activist and war veteran Ibrahim Nader Babaei, human rights activist and blogger Kouhiar Goudarzi, student activist Majid Dari, student activist Majid Tavakoli, journalist Keyvan Samimi, as well as Gholam Hossein Arashi, Mohammad Hossein Sohrabi Rad and Peyman Karimi Azad who were arrested during the Ashura protests are among the prisoners who have been on hunger strike in solitary confinement.