26 Jul 10 | Index Index, Middle East and North Africa, minipost, News and features
The wife and brother-in-law of the lawyer who defended Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, the mother of two who was sentenced to death by stoning for alleged adultery, have been arrested. The lawyer, Mohammed Mostafaei, who is also a human rights activist, drew international attention to the case, which eventually forced the Iranian authorites to overturn the ruling. On Saturday his office was searched and he was arrested but later released.
03 Jul 10 | Uncategorized
This week an Iranian military court convicted a number of officers accused of torturing and killing three men detained during the protests that followed last year’s controversial presidential election. The officers were accused of murdering Amir Javadifar, Mohsen Roohol-amini, and Mohammad Kamrani. Ramin Aghazadeh also died as a result of injuries he sustained in the detention centre, located south of Tehran. However, the Iranian authorities denied they were responsible for his death.
The prison was closed on the order of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei after details of torture, rapes and murders leaked into the public domain. At the time officials denied allegations of abuse and the only reason given for closing Kahrizak was “non-standard” conditions.
Now one year on, a military court in Tehran has issued verdicts on 12 officers who were accused of beating prisoners to death. Two of them were sentenced to death and nine other officials were sentenced to jail. Those found guilty will be lashed and forced to pay blood money fines. One man was acquitted. The verdicts are designated “not final” and can be reconsidered in the court of appeal.
So do the sentences satisfy the victim’s family and the opposition movement? Certainly not. They have a number of questions about the trial.
First, why were the trials held in secret? Was it to ensure the victim’s family and reporters could not take part? Second, why were the soldiers’ names and ranks not mentioned in the verdicts? Third, what about the commanders who gave the orders?
A special committee of parliament has already declared that former Tehran prosecution attorney Saeed Mortazavi was in charge of moving these prisoners to Kahrizak. However, nothing was mentioned about him or the chief of police during the trial. As details of the charges against the officers are not known, it is still not clear what happened there, and why.
Opposition websites call it a “dummy trial” with “unreal convicted officers”; they regard it as an attempt to placate the anger of society. Other activists and journalists say: ignore the crimes the officers committed, if we oppose the death penalty we must oppose their execution. They are tagging their blogs and Facebook pages: “Say no to the execution of Kahrizak criminals!”
Those who oppose execution refer to Parvin Fahim. Her 19-year-old son, Sohrab Arabi, was killed in last year’s demonstrations; yet she says she does not want her son’s murderers to hang. She doesn’t want scapegoats. She wants justice and for the senior officers responsible for her son’s death to be exposed.
Not all the other families agree. Ali Kamrani, father of Mohammad Kamrani, wants to see the execution of his son’s killers. He does not want blood money as he says it cannot bring his son back..
So this trial has opened up a much wider debate than expected. Fighting to stop executions in Iran is one of the big challenges for the opposition now. Maybe it’s time to stand firm against the death penalty even if this time the rope is around our enemy’s neck!
Maral Mehryari is a freelance journalist living in Iran, writing under pseudonym
25 Jun 10 | Middle East and North Africa, News and features
After 21 months being in jail, controversial blogger Hossein Derakhshan, (aka Hoder) finally faced trial on 23 June, writes Hamid Tehrani
Iran’s semi-official news agency Fars [Farsi] claims the charges against Derakhshan are working with “hostile” states, propaganda against the Islamic regime, propaganda in favor of anti-revolutionary groups, insulting religious sanctities, and launching and managing “obscene” websites.
Abolqasem Salavati has been identified as the presiding judge. Salavati oversaw some of the major post-election trials of 2009. In those cases, Salavati got a chance to sit in judgment over some of Iran’s most prominent political figures, including former vice president Mohammad Ali Abtahi, former deputy speaker of parliament Behzad Nabavi, former government spokesman Abdollah Ramezanzadeh, and a number of other former government officials.
Fars does not provide specific information about the trial except that the prosecutor’s representative read out a long list of charges in the presence of Hossein’s family, his lawyer and the judge.
Conservative Jahan News [Farsi], published the same information as Fars, but also quoted some of Derakhshan’s blog posts to demonstrate his support for reformists and his hostility to some of Iranian leaders including Ayatholah Khamenei, Ayatholah Mesbah Yazdi and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Jahan News adds that it cannot publish the insults regarding religious figures. But what the site calls “insults” are a few points of view and critiques. Jahan omits to mention that for more than a year before traveling back to Iran Hossein was a supporter of Ahmadinejad.
Cyrus Farivar, a German-based journalist who has followed the case closely, managed to get this quote via email from a source close to Derakhshan’s family:
“One trial session was held and although no family members were allowed in, but the family remains optimistic that no serious issues exist in his case. Plus, considering the fact that he has already served a long time in prison, most of which has been in solitary confinement, the family doesn’t expect a longer jail sentence. There are more court sessions to be held before the final verdict is out.”
The reasons for Hoder’s initial arrest remain unclear, but some speculate that his two (highly publicised) trips to Israel were behind it.
Iranian Blogger Z8tun summed up the situation 21 months ago: “other Iranians have been caught visiting Israel, but were released after a few hours of interrogation. Some speculate that Derakhshan, who in recent years became a supporter of President Ahmadinejad’s government, was arrested because he insulted some religious leaders in the country. He has himself argued in Western media, despite multiple testimonies of jailed bloggers, that nobody goes to jail in Iran because of the content of their blog.”
The Islamic Republic has cracked down on the blogosphere in recent years, and there are several other bloggers in jail in Iran including human rights activist Shiva Nazar Ahari. On 18 March 2009 Omid Reza Mir Sayafi became the first blogger to die in suspicious circumstances in an Iranian prison.
Campaign for Derakhshan’s release through the Free Hoder Facebook page
Hamid Tehrani, Iran Editor of Global Voices
25 Jun 10 | Middle East and North Africa, News and features
Irena Maryniak talks to Sadeq Saba, head of BBC Persian service, about the channel’s future, signal jamming and impartiality
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