NCRI – Coinciding with the 41st anniversary of the founding of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran, in a terrible crime, the mullahs’ regime’s inhumane henchmen murdered Valliollah Feiz-Mahdavi, a PMOI member, after he was held in prison for five years. Mr. Feiz-Mahdavi, 28, was arrested in 2001 and sentenced to execution by the mullahs’ courts but due to international pressure and a widespread campaign by the Iranian Resistance his sentence was recently put on hold.
His lawyer, Mohammad Sharif, told the state-run news agency ILNA, “On Sunday, upon visiting the Sixth District Prosecutor’s Office of the Revolutionary Court of Tehran, I was told that my client’s execution sentence had not been commuted to imprisonment.” These remarks clearly reveal the regime’s decision to murder Mr. Feiz-Mahdavi.
To cover up this horrendous crime, the regime falsely announced on Tuesday evening and on Wednesday that Mr. Feiz-Mahdavi had attempted to commit suicide by hanging himself in the prison block’s shower on Sunday.
On Tuesday, after they had murdered Mr. Feiz-Mahdavi, suppressive forces raided Ward 2a of Karaj’s Gohar-Dasht Prison and attacked political prisoners. They demanded that the prisoners take part in televised appearances and announce Mr. Feiz-Mahdavi had committed suicide. But the brave prisoners refused to take part in the mock confessions.
Over the past seven months, since the execution of PMOI member Hojjat Zamani on February 7, prison guards had on several occasions threatened Mr. Feiz-Mahdavi with execution. He had been denied visits for some time. The mullahs’ henchmen had told him that he consistently gave news from within the prison to the outside through those who visited him and that there was no longer a need for him to have visits.
Mr. Feiz-Mahdavi, who had been on hunger strike since August 23, was on September 2 transferred from Ward 2a of Gohar-Dasht Prison. On the same day, the block’s warden called Moghnian and the prison’s director Ali Mohammadi threatened Mr. Feiz-Mahdavi with death.
The Iranian Resistance calls on the United Nations Secretary-General, Human Rights Council, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and all human rights organizations to immediately condemn this barbaric crime and take action to save the lives of other political prisoners. It calls for an international delegation to be immediately dispatched to Iran to investigate the plight of Iranian political prisoners and the execution of this political prisoner five years after his arrest.
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
September 6, 2006
