Call for immediate action for the release of four imprisoned writers
Call for immediate action for the release of four imprisoned writersWomen prisoners in Qarchak-Varamin, imprisoned students, intellectuals, and all political prisoners should be released
At a time when the Coronavirus tragedy is becoming more widespread and, according to daily government statistics, the number of those infected and dead has doubled compared to last month, religious fascism in Iran is not only refusing to temporarily release political prisoners, every day, more and more dissidents, families and supporters of the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK/PMOI) and political prisoners of the 1980s are being arrested and sent to prison.
In October, Messrs. Baktash Abtin, Reza Khandan Mahabadi, and Keyvan Bajan, members of the Writers’ Association, were arrested and transferred to Evin Prison. Before that, Mr. Khosrow Sadeghi Borujeni, a writer and journalist, had been imprisoned. The mullahs’ court sentenced four writers to a total of 20 years and six months in prison on charges of “propaganda against the regime” and “acting against national security.”
Mrs. Maryam Nasiri, 62, was arrested in Qaleh Hassan Khan (Tehran Province) on August 17, 2020 and was interrogated and tortured in solitary confinement in Ward 209 of Evin Prison. She was recently transferred to Qarchak Varamin Women’s Prison. Nasiri is a lawyer with four children who was jailed for three years in the 1980s for supporting the MEK.
Qarchak prison does not have the minimum living and health facilities, and especially in Coronavirus condition, the environment is very polluted, and prisoners are at serious risk of contracting the virus.
Political prisoners Forough Taghipour, Zahra Safaei, and Parasto Moeini, arrested earlier this year, were also transferred to the same prison and are denied the right to contact or see their families.
In another development, Ali Younesi and Amir Hossein Moradi, two elite students at the Sharif University of Technology, imprisoned since March, are still being held in Evin Prison. Meanwhile, Vahid and Habib Afkari, brothers of Iranian wrestling champion martyr Navid Afkari, are still in solitary confinement under pressure and torture.
On October 20, Mr. Majid Zabihi, 60, was arrested in Tabriz and transferred to prison. He had been arrested multiple times for political reasons before and had been imprisoned for four years in the 80s. In the past, he and his family members have been repeatedly threatened by the clerical regime’s intelligence agents and mercenaries.
In the face of internal and external crises, the inhuman regime has no scruples to commit any crime in order to prevent the escalation of the people’s uprisings and to delay its inevitable overthrow. These include executions, filling the prisons and exposing the prisoners to Coronavirus, the brutal treatment of people by repressive forces, as well as the torture and murder of women and youth in public, as has happened in recent days in Abadan, Mashhad, and Esfarayen,
The Iranian Resistance urges the United Nations Secretary-General, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights the UN Human Rights Council, and the relevant rapporteurs, as well as other international human rights organizations to take urgent action to secure the release of imprisoned writers, detained students, women prisoners in Qarchak-Varamin, Afkari brothers and all other political prisoners, at least until the end of the pandemic. It also reiterates the need for an international commission of inquiry to visit Iranian prisons and meet with prisoners, especially political prisoners.
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI)
October 28, 2020
