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Iran rights group says detained Kurds on hunger strike

TEHRAN, Aug 20, 2007 (AFP) - Two Iranian Kurdish journalists sentenced to death have been on hunger strike in prison for over a month, a group defending prisoners' rights said on Monday.

"The two Kurdish prisoners Adnan Hassanpour and (Abdolvahed) Hiva Botimar have been on a hunger strike for more than a month. Their situation is worrying," The Defence of Prisoners' Rights Society said, quoting the detainees' lawyer Saleh Nikhbakht.

"The Society, regardless of their accusations, sees it as its duty to raise alarm over their health and life.

"Their demands are limited and can be met. They want to be transferred to the general section of the prison and meet their families and lawyers."

The two men were sentenced to death for being "enemies of God" on July 16 by a revolutionary court in Marivan, in Iran's northeastern Kordestan province.

The death sentence sparked condemnation in Europe. But the Iranian judiciary has said the sentence had nothing to do with their work as journalists and they were convicted for taking up arms against Iran's Islamic system.

According to Reporters Without Borders, the two journalists wrote for the magazine Aso (Horizons), before it was banned in August 2005.