NCRI – Political prisoner Ali Saremi has sent out a letter from prison, responding to the accusations of the clerical regime’s prosecutor in Tehran, Abbas Jafari Dolat-Abadi. In the letter, he emphasizes that the regime’s decision to hand down execution sentences arises out of fear from its unstable situation. The English translation of the letter is as follows:
In the name of God
For every right that is violated, there will be resistance, and the oppressors will have to resort to cruelty and suppression.
My dear compatriots,
In an interview with the so-called Panjereh magazine, which was published in the daily Kayhan, on May 16, 2010, Tehran’s prosecutor, Dowlat-Abadi, announced that I am charged with having contacts with the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI). He said I was arrested in September 2009 after the start of post-election protests.
However, I, Ali Saremi, was arrested on September 4, 2007, nearly two years prior to the elections. The reason for my arrest was visiting Ashraf City to see my son in 2005. Because of that visit that lasted several days, I was sentenced to a year in prison. My arrest in 2007 was after visiting the graves of the victims of the 1988 executions in Khavaran Cemetery. But, would you consider visiting a cemetery or sympathizing with an organization or visiting a son, examples of “moharebeh” [waging war against God], the sentence for which is execution? That is why the statements made by the Tehran Prosecutor are so baseless that they do not even deserve a response. They are so baseless that they [regime] cannot even communicate my sentence to my lawyer. They took the verdict without the signatures of myself and my lawyer to the appeals show trial and confirmed it there.
Nevertheless, I will loudly announce that even with my hanging they cannot frighten either myself or my freedom-loving compatriots, because, that can only mean that I have frightened them [the regime] so much that they had no other recourse but to execute me. The only reason for handing down such sentences is because they are fearful of their unstable situation, not implementation of justice and fairness. Now, as a father, whose children, the likes of Farzad, Ali, Farhad, Shirin, and Mehdi [five activists executed on May 9 by the regime], were recently hanged, just like thousands of other people before them, what else would be expected of me except to shout out as an Iranian who believes in God and loves freedom:
Even if you burn my body
Or tie me to the gallows
Where
And when
Can you snatch from my heart
The love between my nation and I?
If during my life and even during the total of 23 years that I have spent in prison, I failed to carry out my duties to God, my people and my nation, perhaps my execution would raise awareness among my people. I once again cry out to my people and my country:
This life of mine is worthless in comparison to your cause
Long live our Iran
Political prisoner Ali Saremi
May 2010
