Behzad Rasouli, a political prisoner from Saqqez who is being held in the city’s Central Prison under an eight-year discretionary prison sentence, has been on a dry hunger strike for more than two months in protest against the issued verdict.
According to Kolbarnews, Behzad Rasouli, a 43-year-old political prisoner from Saqqez, began a dry hunger strike in protest after being informed of his eight-year discretionary prison sentence, and more than two months have now passed since the start of his protest action.
According to received information, the continuation of the hunger strike has caused a dramatic loss of weight for the political prisoner, reducing his weight from more than 80 kilograms to approximately 50 kilograms.
Informed sources have also reported a serious deterioration in both his physical and mental condition and warned that the continuation of these circumstances could place his life in grave danger.
Behzad Rasouli, who had been arrested nearly a year earlier, was sentenced in early spring 2026 by Branch One of the Revolutionary Court of Saqqez, presided over by Judge Javad Ghaffari, to eight years of discretionary imprisonment on charges of “membership in one of the Kurdish parties.” The sentence was officially communicated to him in Saqqez Central Prison.
This political prisoner was arrested on August 26, 2025, during a trip to Isfahan to visit his young child. After more than two months of interrogation and detention in solitary confinement in one of the security detention centers in Isfahan, he was transferred to Saqqez Central Prison.
This is not Behzad Rasouli’s first prolonged hunger strike. Following his transfer to Saqqez Central Prison in the autumn of 2025, he had previously undertaken a 70-day dry hunger strike in protest against his continued detention, deprivation of temporary release, security pressure aimed at extracting forced confessions, and restrictions preventing him from meeting his young child.
During that previous hunger strike, his physical condition had also become critically severe, and due to extreme weight loss and complications resulting from the hunger strike, he was transferred once to Khomeini Hospital in Saqqez to receive medical treatment.
