NCRI – As an extension of pressures on political prisoners whose relatives reside in Camp Ashraf, Iraq, the regime’s henchmen have stepped up threats and abuses against the 23 year old student activist and political prisoner Hassan Tarlani.
• Mr. Tarlani has been sentenced to 10 years imprisonment and exile at Kerman prison. He is currently being held in cells where regular and dangerous prisoners are kept, most of whom are drug addicts. He has been banned from having contacts with other political prisoners, while prisoners on death row have been transferred to his cell in order to increase pressures on the student activist. Agents of the mullahs’ Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) are not allowing his family to visit him despite the fact that they incur huge financial costs and have to travel lengthy distances to see Mr. Tarlani. His family is only allowed to visit him once a month for 15 minutes in visitors’ cabin. The agents have also confiscated all of Hassan’s identification documents, rendering a legal investigation of his case impossible. Hassan is the grandson of a slain supporter of the main opposition, People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK), Hassan-Ali Safai, who was a well-known Bazaar merchant. Mr. Safai was executed by the ruling religious fascism in Iran in 1981 for supporting the PMOI. Hassan was arrested on February 20, 2009, along with a group of other relatives of Ashraf residents, after which he was transferred to the notorious Evin prison. Regime officials have charged him with keeping pictures of his mother and brother at his house, both of whom are residents of Camp Ashraf, Iraq.
• Another student activist, Zia Nabavi, has been sentenced to 10 years in prison by the mullahs’ judiciary. The severe sentence was handed down on the charge of having family ties to the residents of Ashraf and other ludicrous charges such as speaking at a university gathering and interviewing with a student website. In addition to Zia, seven other members of the Nabavi family, including Atefeh, Maliheh, Sareh, Alireza, Seyyed Jalal, Narges Sheikhna, and Maryeh Emadi, have also been charged with either having family links with PMOI members in Camp Ashraf or visiting them. They are being held at Evin, Gohardasht, Semnan and Qom prisons.
The severe punishments and increasing of pressures on political prisoners and especially relatives of Ashraf residents takes place by the regime in order to heighten the atmosphere of fear and terror in society in a bid to prevent further popular protests scheduled to take place this month. But, such measures by the regime will undoubtedly make the arisen youths and people of Iran more determined to reject the absolute clerical rule in its entirety.
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
June 7, 2010