Ali Moezi letter to Asma Jahangir UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation

Ali Moezi writes to Special Rapporteur protesting denial of due process in Iran

Iranian political prisoner Ali Moezi has written a letter from Gohardasht Prison in Karaj to the UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Iran protesting his mistreatment and denial of due process by the regime. The following is the text of his letter:

To Ms. Asma Jahangir – Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation [in Iran]

From political prisoner Ali Moezi

Dear Ms. Asma Jahangir, Special Rapporteur

Please accept my warmest greetings and best regards.

I, Ali Moezi, am a political prisoner in Gohardasht Prison in Karaj, also known as Rajai-Shahr Prison, and have been incarcerated since June 2011. After spending two years in Evin Prison, in June 2013 I learnt that I had been sentenced in absentia to one year imprisonment for ‘propaganda against the regime’ by Judge Salavati (Branch 15). Thereafter I was kept in prison in order to complete a three-year suspended sentence which I had received in 2008. On 18 June 2013, I was exiled from Evin Prison to the Special Crimes Ward of Karaj Prison. I was supposed to be released in June 2015. But a few months before the end of my imprisonment without prior notice and without informing my family and on the guise of sending me for rehabilitation, they took me to the Ministry of Intelligence’s detention centre in Ward 209 of Evin Prison and threw me in a solitary confinement cell. I was kept there for two months without my lawyer or family being informed. They set up a case against me for remaining true to my positions and beliefs and for having issued statements from inside prison, and they sent me back to Karaj Prison. A few days later, without having the opportunity to meet with my family or lawyer, they again transferred me from Karaj Prison to the Intelligence Ministry’s Ward in Gohardasht Prison where I was kept in solitary confinement for two months. Here again I was held without my lawyer or family being notified and under the same guise. The file consisted of several copies of a declaration stating that in prison I had spread propaganda against the regime. For this one case, I was prosecuted in two separate courts – Branch 1 of the Karaj Revolutionary Court (Judge Asif Al-Husseini) and Branch 28 of Tehran’s Revolutionary Court (Judge Moghiseh). Since each court session took place all of a sudden and without prior notice and without the presence of a lawyer or a representative of the prosecutor and without any lawful or legal guidelines or the slightest resemblance to a court, I refused to attend the courts. I was forcibly taken to both courts with beatings and while being dragged on the ground and I received a concussion, and they took me there in such a state. I was convicted for the same charge – propaganda against the regime from prison – to one year imprisonment by each of these two courts – i.e. a total of two years imprisonment. Therefore the date of my freedom was moved from the spring of 2015 to the spring of 2017.

They did not accept my lawyer (Mr. Amir Salar Davoodi).They said we must approve the lawyer, and he should not have become your lawyer without first coordinating with us. He was not given a copy of my file by the court in Karaj. All of the transfers between the detention centers, prisons and solitary confinement took place without prior notice, and they would not give a definitive answer to my family, nor would they tell them where I was being held.

Now today (Tuesday, 22 November 2016) like many previous times all of a sudden they came at 7 am and said, ‘let’s go, you’ve been summoned’. I asked, ‘where to?’ They said, ‘we don’t know’. After a lot of discussion and without showing me a letter or summoning order, they said ‘you’ve got a court session’ – without me knowing which court and for what charge.

No one accepts responsibility. I do not know my charge and to which authority they plan to take me. It seems they plan to once again convict me in prison and increase my prison term via such bogus courts which have no competency.

It is just as Judge Ebrahimian of Branch 12 of the Karaj Revolutionary Court told me in the winter of 2015: ‘Because you still remain true to your beliefs and positions, you will spend years in the prisons of Tehran and Karaj.”

I vehemently urge you to focus on and condemn this lawlessness and violation of human rights and to try to prevent such oppression and injustice against political prisoners.

With thanks and respect – Ali Moezi

Gohardasht Prison in Karaj, 22 November 2016

 

Copy to:

The United Nations Human Rights Council

Amnesty International