Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) – Azerbaijani activist Abbas Lasani’s public dissent with the Iranian judicial system continued this week with his spurning, via open letter, of a second court subpoena that he decries as illegitimate. “I will not abide by the rule of tyranny, and thus I express my protest and rebellion against this illegal process, and against your oppressive conduct unbecoming of a court,” he wrote.
Via SMS on September 24th, Lasani learned he had been convicted in absentia in Branch 2 of Tabriz Revolutionary Court. On October 10th, a writ summoned him to hear the conviction in court within the next ten days.
“My verdict was delivered by a totally illegal and unlawful process that is neither reasonable nor acceptable,” Lasani wrote, explaining that constitutional article 168 stipulates that verdicts in political, press, or conscience cases must be tried in public and in the presence of the media.
HRANA reported September 16th on Lasani’s refusal to respond to an initial summons via text message from the same court. “It’s impossible to ignore that the summons is illegitimate, arriving by text message with no official hard copy,” Lasani said in a public statement.
Abbas Lasani was among a group of four Azerbaijani (Turk) activists residing in Ardebil arrested by Intelligence agents July 2, 2018, a few days before an annual gathering at Babak Fort, a site that has acquired symbolic importance for Azerbaijani rallies in recent years. Prior to his arrest, he had shared a video encouraging people to attend the gathering. He was released on 500 million rials [$3,500 USD] bail July 11, 2018. More than 80 Azerbaijani activists were arrested throughout Ardabil, West Azerbaijan, and East Azerbaijan provinces at the time of the Babak Fort gathering.
Amnesty International issued a statement on August 11th of this year, calling the arrests of Azerbaijani activists “arbitrary” and unlawful, and demanded the immediate release of all individuals detained for their participation in Azerbaijani Turkic cultural gatherings.
Category: Ethnic Minorities
Forty-four Ahwazi Detainees Identified in Wake of Parade Attack
Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) – Since last month’s attack on an Ahvaz military parade, dozens of Ahwazi Arab citizens of Iran have been rounded up, arrested, and transferred to unknown locations in the Khuzestan province.
Public urgency to find those responsible for the attack — which claimed the lives of several civilians, including women and children — is matched only by mounting concern that Iran’s security establishment, with its history of questionable investigation methods, might be searching too aggressively for a scapegoat.
HRANA has identified 44 of the arrestees detained near Ahvaz in recent weeks: 1. Jamil Heidari, 33, 2. Majed Heidari, 25, 3. Ahmad Hamari, 29, 4. Seyed Jasem Rahmani (Mousavi), 33, 5. Majed Chaldavi, 6. Seyed Hamood Rahmani (Mousavi), 7. Ali Savari, 23, 8. Hatam Savari, 9. Adnan Savari, 10. Hossein Heidari, 11. Ahmad Bavi, 12. Abdolrahman Khosraji, 32, 13. Mahdi Saedi, 27, 14. Javad Badvi, 26, 15. Riaz Zahiri, 16. Zamel Heidari, 17. Mahdi Kooti, 18. Ali Kooti, 19. Sattar Kooti, 20. Ali Mansouri, 21. Mohammad Momen Timas, 55, 22. Ahmad Timas, 28, 26. Osama Timas, 26, 24. Adel Afravi, 25. Mohammad Savari, 26. Mokhtar Masoudi, 27. Abdollah Silavi, 28. Khaled Silavi, 29. Ali Albaji, 30. Maher Masoudi, 31. Javad Hashemi, 32. Yousef Khosraji, 33. Abbas Badvi, 34. Mohsen Badvi, 35. Hassan Ben Ali, 36. Jador Afravi, 37. Milad Afravi, 38. Ali Albaji, 39. Mohammad Masoudi, 40. Alireza Deris, 41. Adel Zahiri, 42. Adel Afravi, 43. Ahmad Heidari, 44. Fahad Neisi
The attack in question was a violent interruption to a military parade in Ahvaz on September 22nd, commemorating the Iran-Iraq war. Mid-ceremony, gunmen suddenly opened fire on soldiers and spectators alike.
Mojtaba Zolnour, member of the Iranian parliamentary committee for national security and foreign affairs, announced 29 deaths and 57 wounded. Several civilians, including a 4-year-old child, figured on the list of victims released by state-run news agencies.
It has yet to be determined which group is responsible for the attack, and on Iranian airwaves, theories abound. Not long after the attack took place, Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence released a video recording of blindfolded, unidentified detainees facing a wall, accompanied with the announcement that the Ministry had 22 suspects in custody.
Local sources have countered the Ministry’s report, estimating the tally of those detained so far to be closer to 300. The majority of these arrests have taken place in the cities of Ahvaz, Khorramshahr, Susangerd, and Abadan, all located in Khuzestan province.
Security measures now loom large over the Arab-majority neighborhoods south of Khuzestan, local sources say, while the families of those detained have been unable to obtain any indication from authorities on the status or location of their loved ones.
Previously, Iranian Minister of Intelligence Mahmoud Alavi made the public claim that “the terrorists who opened fire on the crowd have been killed,” adding, “Every single person behind the attack […] will be identified, and the majority of them have already been apprehended.”
Many of the arrestees have a previous track record with police, reinforcing public speculation that security forces are applying the timeworn approach of haranguing past offenders into culpability, current or relevant evidence be damned.
Iran’s Supreme Court Upholds Death Sentence for Hedayat Abdollahpour
Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) – Supreme Court Branch 47 has upheld the death sentence for Urmia prisoner Hedayat Abdollahpour, one of several defendants charged in connection to the Oshnavieh clashes, his lawyer Hossein Ahmadiniaz told HRANA. It also upheld the prison sentences of six of Abdollahpour’s co-defendants, who are currently free on bail.
Ahmadiniaz and Abdollapour’s family learned yesterday October 8th of the high court’s assent to his January 2017 capital punishment sentence in Urmia Revolutionary Court Branch 1, on a charge of “Baqi,” i.e. rebellion [often used against those accused of participating in armed uprisings]. Abdollapour maintains that he never took up arms and did not have a weapon at the time of his arrest.
Abdollahpour was arrested along with six others on June 15, 2016, in Qarah Soqol village near the city of Oshnavieh. His case was initially toggled from one court to another: charges were first ruled in initial court, reversed in supreme court, and then sent back to the parallel court branch that ultimately decided his fate.
Ahmadniaz told HRANA that his client was guilty simply of having been in the wrong place at the wrong time. “Hedayat Abdollahpour is being processed on something he knows nothing about, and towards which he would have no inclination,” Ahmadniaz said. “These honorable plaintiffs — the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) — want to put him to death for Baqi.”
Ahmadiniaz went on to iterate the upheld prison sentences of Abdollahpour’s co-defendants: Rasoul Azizi Alias Hassed, 25 years; Mohammad Zaher Faramarzi, 20 years; Jalal Masroori and Yaghob Ba Ekram, 15 years each; Kamal Masroori and Sedigh Baekram, 10 years each.
The Oshnavieh clashes were fights that broke out between the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps of Hamzeh in the summer of 2016. Many from both sides were wounded or lost their lives in the conflicts.
Many of those residing in the border region of Oshnavieh were arrested and convicted on suspicions of collaborating wwith the Kurdish opposition.
Abdollahpour’s brother Farhad was arrested by IRGC Intelligence forces June 30th of this year and taken to IRGC detention center in Urmia. He was transferred to Oshnavieh Prison September 13th and later released on a bail of 2 billion rials [approximately $20,000 USD].
Political Prisoner Denied Access to an Attorney
Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA)- On August 3rd of this year, Ministry of Intelligence forces arrested Houshmand Alipour and Mohammad Ostadghader, whose taped confessions were broadcast on national television. Since then, Alipour has been cut off from both the services of a lawyer and visits from his family. He stands accused of membership in Kurdish opposition groups.
A family-appointed attorney learned on a phone call with the Sanandaj Intelligence Office that Alipour’s October 4th investigation court date was postponed, an informed source told HRANA. The prosecutor investigator has already interrogated Alipour, who will spend two more weeks at the Intelligence Office. Alipour’s family and lawyer deny rumors that he has been executed, the source said.
Alipour’s brother Hejar added that while Alipour has had contact with his family over the phone, they remain anxious to see him in person, and are worried about his continued interrogation and detention in the absence of any legal defense.
HRANA previously published a letter from Hejar Alipour, in which he pleads his brother’s case.
Alipour is from Sardasht, western Iran.
Azerbaijani Activist Summoned in Khoy
Human Rights Activist News Agency (HRANA) – Javad Ahmadi Yekanli, an Azerbaijani activist from the city of Khoy, was summoned by county security police on October 8th for reasons that have yet to be confirmed.
Yekanli was arrested along with a number of Azerbaijani activists for taking part in a July 6th annual gathering at Babak Fort. He was released on a bail of 200 million rials (approximately $4750 USD).
Authorities also apprehended Yekanli at a 12th-anniversary commemoration gathering at Golzaar cemetery in Naqade county for protesters who died in 2006. He was detained and beaten before being released on a billion rials (approximately $23,750 USD) bail.
He was also arrested in December of 2016 in his father’s house; on that occasion, authorities rifled through the house, confiscating his books and computer.
Agents of the Khoy Security Department regularly contact Yekanli and his family to warn them against resuming political activities.
Judge Denies Sahand Ma’ali’s Objection to Absentia Sentence
Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) – Judge Mehdi Shams of Sarab Revolutionary Court in East Azerbaijan Province has overruled Sahand Ma’ali’s objection to his 10-month prison sentence ruled in absentia.
Per Iranian law, defendants sentenced in absentia have the right to bypass appeals court by objecting to trial court rulings. Now that Ma’ali’s objection has been denied, he has twenty days to file his dissent as an appeal with East Azerbaijan Appeals Court.
Ma’ali was initially convicted of “propaganda against the regime through the promotion of ethnic groups with the aim of inviting people to the Babak Fort gathering” after his arrest at a gathering of Azerbaijani activists on July 6th of this year. He was later released on bail.
Fort Babak, a monument built during the pre-Islamic Sasanian period, is the namesake of Babak Khorramdin, who led an uprising against the Abbasid caliphate in 893. In recent years, it has become a place of symbolic gathering for Azerbaijani activists, especially during the annual commemorations in the first week of July.
Ma’ali has a prior record with Iranian judicial authorities dating back to July 2nd, 2012 when security forces raided his residence and arrested him following inspections of his father’s home. They confiscated some of his belongings, including his personal computer, after forcing him to open his shop to another search and seizure. In July 2013, he was sentenced to one year in prison for “propaganda against the regime”.
Court Compounds Prison Sentence of Afrin Battle Detainees
Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA)- The 11-year prison sentences of Afrin Battle detainees Rahim Mahmoudi Azar and Mostafa Ghader Zeinab were compounded Sunday, September 30th by an additional one-year prison term each, ruled in Branch 103 of the General Court of Urmia, on a charge of “crossing the border illegally.”
Both men were fighting among the ranks of a Kurdish military group in Afrin, Syrian Kurdistan earlier this year when they were wounded and extradited to Iran. A close source told HRANA that starting March 8, 2018, they were interrogated for five weeks straight, first for a week at Evin Detention Center and then for a month in Urmia’s Intelligence Office.
In July, Branch 3 of Urmia Revolutionary Court in northwestern Iran sentenced each of them to 11 years in prison for their opposition-group connections, which in court translated to charges of “membership in anti-regime groups,” “collusion and conspiracy,” and “propaganda against the regime.” The sentence was later upheld in appeals court.
A source close to both men previously told HRANA that Zeinab and Azar sustained their injuries during a Turkish offensive on Afrin. It was at the hospital in Aleppo, he said, that their legal troubles began to unfold: “Upon realizing their nationalities, Syrian authorities handed them over to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).”
Both men have been denied the right to appoint lawyers of their choice and attended their court session with a public defender.
Azar is currently detained in Urmia. Zeinab is free on bail.
Appeals Court Upholds Conviction of Azerbaijani Activist
Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) – The three-year prison sentence of Azerbaijani activist Hossein Ali Mohammadi Alvar has been upheld by Judge Bahloul Alizadeh of East Azerbaijan Province Appeals Court Branch 3. Mohammadi Alvar is a resident of Tabriz in northwestern Iran, home to the country’s Azerbaijani ethnic minority.
An informed source confirmed news of the appeals decision to HRANA and elaborated on Mohammadi Alvar’s charges: two years in prison for insulting the Supreme Leader, and one year in prison for propaganda against the regime.
The appeals verdict confirmed the initial sentence issued to Mohammadi Alvar in Branch 2 of Tabriz Revolutionary Court. The same appeals court upheld the same sentence on the same charges four years ago, in connection to a different case file initially tried in Tabriz Revolutionary Court Branch 3. Pursuant to the 2014 ruling, security agents apprehended Mohammadi Alvar March 1, 2015, transferring him to Tabriz Central Prison to begin serving his sentence.
Authorities began developing a rap sheet on Mohammadi Alvar on September 12, 2013, when he and Farzad Mahdavi were arrested by security agents at a match of the Tabriz-based soccer club “Tractor Sazi.” Both Mohammadi Alvar and Mahdavi spent a day in detention before posting bail and going free.
Two months later, on November 4th, 2013, Tabriz security agents would arrest Mohammadi Alvar a second time, along with his fellow Azerbaijani activist Taha Kermani. Mohammadi Alvar and Kermani spent nearly 6 months in Tabriz Central prison before being released on bail. The corollary 10-year prison sentence issued to Mohammadi Alvar and Kermani in Revolutionary Court Branch 3 was later reduced to 2 years in appeals court.
In July 2015, Amnesty International issued a statement expressing concern that Mohammadi Alvar and Kermani’s 10-year sentence was “unjustified” and “politically motivated.” Amnesty said the men were convicted on the basis of confessions extracted under torture, which constituted a violation of human rights. They urged authorities to order an impartial investigation of the men’s torture allegations, and that if the latter is proven true, to bring those responsible to justice.
Brother of Kurdish Activist Arrested in Western Iran
Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA)- On the morning of Thursday, September 27, 2018, Intelligence Ministry Agents arrested a taxi driver in his home, on “suspicion that his brother is actively cooperating with a Kurdish opposition group,” a close source told HRANA.
The arrestee — Ebrahim Divazi, a resident of the Kurdish city of Mahabad — has been taken to an undisclosed location.
One week prior to Divazi’s arrest, Mahabad Intelligence agents raided the home of Ebrahim Divazi’s brother Esmaeil Farahmand, roughhousing his family and assaulting his mother while searching the premises. Farahmand is currently on the lam.
The brothers’ father Osman Divazi was killed in the 1980 “massacre of Inderghash village” (1) [which is popularly believed to have been carried out by pro-regime militia].
(1) In the wake of a Kurdish uprising in Western Iran after the 1979 revolution, Mulla Hassani, a Khomeini representative based in Western Azerbaijan province, led a militia group in a raid on the village of Inderghash. While the raid was carried out on the pretext of disarming local resistors, locals had surrendered their weapons to the IRGC days before. When the militia later came under attack from a Kurdish opposition group, they responded by massacring dozens of villagers.
https://ekurd.net/mismas/articles/misc2010/11/irankurd681.htm
Azerbaijani Activist Sentenced to 1 Year in Prison for Cultural Rally
Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) – Kiumars Eslami, an Azerbaijani activist arrested during the July 4th Azerbaijani rallies at Babak Fort, has been sentenced to one year in prison by Judge Firooz Farahani Mazrae Jahan, on the charge of “propaganda against the regime.”
Babak Fort is a site in northwestern Iran, home to the country’s Azerbaijani minority group, that has gained popularity in recent years as an annual cultural rallying spot for Azerbaijani activists during the first week of July.
In justifying his verdict, the judge cited Eslami’s cultural and ‘separatist’ activities: “The defendant is one of the ethnic, separatist, and Pan-Turkic activists in Parsabad,” Jahan wrote. “In order to carry out this separatist activity, he prepares reports, translates Persian books into Turkish [In Persian, the Azerbaijani language is often referred to as Turkish], distorts them in cyberspace, and disseminates them to foreign networks associated with the opposition. He is a leader and a member of the sub-branches of the Pan-Turkic movement in Parsabad county.”
Another reason cited for Eslami’s conviction was his reference to Iran’s Azerbaijani provinces as “South Azerbaijan” in social media posts.
According to an informed source, the head of Parsabad’s intelligence office, known only as Hazrati, previously told Eslami that his case file would be closed if he announced on the news that he would cease his Azerbaijani-related activism and cut off contact with fellow activist Abbas Lasani, who was recently convicted of similar charges.
A native of Parsabad-e Moghan, also located in northwestern Iran, Eslami was previously held in Moghan Prison, where he reportedly sustained head wounds and bleeding during violent interrogations by Iranian authorities. He went on a nine-day hunger strike beginning July 28th to protest the prison conditions and his oppression in the judicial system. He was released on approximately $650 USD (120 million IRR) bail on August 9th.