Eight members of Iran's Gonabadi Sufi minority are on hunger strike, protesting alleged torture in prison after protests in which members of the security forces were killed, Amnesty International said Friday (March 30th).
According to the rights group, one of the men was allegedly “threatened with his wife being raped in front of him” if he did not confess, AFP reported.
Amnesty said the hunger strikers, who are being held in Shapour detention centre in Tehran, require medical care for injuries sustained during their arrest in the violent clashes with security forces on February 19th.
The violence erupted as members of the Gonabadi order protested the arrest of members of the sect and rumours that their leader would soon be arrested.
"Commonly reported methods of torture [at the prison] include kicking and punching; beatings with plastic pipes, cables or whips; prolonged binding; and various forms of suspension including one known as the 'chicken kebab', in which the person is suspended from a pole with their arms bent back and tied to their ankles and then flogged," Amnesty said.
More than 300 people were arrested in the February clashes, in which three police officers and two members of a militia tasked with policing duties were killed.
Meanwhile, EU officials have expressed concern about a rise in illegal migration from Iran, with 7,000 Iranians arriving in Serbia since August, according to official statistics.
According to Info Park, a Serbian group helping refugees, a number of Iranians are using a new visa liberalisation agreement with Serbia to come to Europe and stay there illegally as migrants.
"These are often people who are persecuted for political reasons, LGBT people, or people whose religion was not Islam," said Info Park communication officer Stevan Tatalovic.
