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The Iranian blogger Mojtaba Saminejad, who is now working from Turkey, drew our attention to a series of hunger strikes under way in Tehran’s Evin prison.

Seventeen prisoners in Evin prison began their hunger strike 12 days ago to protest conditions there, according to the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran. In response, prison officials transferred the prisoners to solitary confinement on July 26 and denied them contact with their families,Human Rights House in Iran reported Thursday. Security forces with batons attacked the prisoners’ family members, who had gathered in front of the main entrance to the Tehran prosecutor’s office on Thursday, and threatened them with arrest, Human Rights House in Iran reported.

All of the hunger strikers have been in jail since they were rounded up in the aftermath of the protests sparked by the June 2009 presidential vote, when President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was re-elected amid allegations of widespread fraud.