According to the United Nations, at least eight people, who could be classified as prisoners of conscience, have been participating in hunger strikes, contesting their detention.
"I am deeply concerned about the continuous detention of human rights defenders in Iran, who have been tried on the basis of vaguely defined offences and heavily sentenced following trials marred with due process violations… They are left with no other option but to put their life at risk to contest the legality of their detention," Jahangir said, as quoted by the UN Office at Geneva.
She added that Tehran should "immediately and unconditionally" release people, who had been detained because of exercising their inevitable rights of freedom of expression or over promoting human rights in Iran.
