AI-US, Nowruz action

The Persian holiday Nowruz (“new day”) is an ancient holiday celebrated on the first day of spring to welcome in the new year. On this Nowruz we want to remember several courageous prisoners of conscience in Iran with Nowruz greetings. We ask you to send cards with simple Nowruz greetings such as “Nowruz mobarak”

You can say “thinking of you at Nowruz time” or “hoping you are well.” You may send a greeting in either English or Farsi (Persian) but please do not mention Amnesty International or specifics of the recipient’s case. Please also refrain from mentioning the political situation, human rights or U.S.-Iran relations. We suggest sending cards with pictures of landscapes, spring flowers or the like, in keeping with the spirit of the holiday and the message of hope and renewal. Please do not choose cards that have pictures of people, and please do not use cards that depict bottles of wine or other alcoholic beverages.

Traditional Nowruz celebrations include the preparation of a Haft Sin table which literally means the seven s’s. Seven items beginning with the Persian letter sin (equivalent to the English s) and which represent spring time are set out. To honor this tradition, this year Amnesty International has selected seven cases, all of them prisoners of conscience who have been identified by Amnesty International as “individuals at risk” and are therefore targeted for intensified campaigning. Several of them have been sentenced to long prison terms for their peaceful activism and several are in poor health.

Mansour Ossanlu

Mansour Ossanlu is the leader of the Union of Workers of the Tehran and Suburbs Bus Company (Syndica-ye Sherkat-e Vahed). He is currently serving a five-year prison sentence for “acts against national security.” The charges stem from his peaceful work to obtain better conditions for workers in Iran and to end discriminatory laws and practices that curtail workers’ rights in Iran. He had been arrested and detained several times and severely beaten in custody.

He had originally been held in Tehran’s Evin Prison but in August 2008 he was transferred to Raja’i-Shahr prison in the city of Karaj which houses criminals convicted of violent crimes. Raja’i-Shahr prison is far from his wife and family who have not been able to visit him very often.

He has suffered from serious medical problems, including retinal damage resulting from beatings he received during a previous detention. Although he was permitted to undergo emergency eye surgery in October 2007, his health condition is still a concern. He has not been allowed to receive the medical care he needs. Amnesty International considers him a prisoner of conscience who is being detained on vaguely worded charges in order to halt his efforts to build strong trade unions capable of defending the human rights of workers.

You can send a greeting for Mansour Ossanlu to his wife Parvaneh at:

Golbarg-e Gharbi
(Janbazan-e Gharbi)
Taqate’ Maseyl-e Bakhtar
Sar-e Koucheh Shahid Ali Akbar Amiri
Plak 343, Tabaqe avval
Khaneye Ossanlu

Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran

Or:
Mansour Ossanlu
First floor, Number 343
Shahid Ali Akbar Amiri Alley
Western Water Barrier Crossroads (or: Maseyl-e Bakhtar Crossroads)
(Janbazan West)
Golbarg West, Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran

Ronak Safarzadeh

Ronak Safarzadeh, an Iranian Kurdish graphic artist and women’s rights activist, is serving a prison sentence of six years and seven months in Sanandaj Prison. She is an active member of the Campaign for Equality, which is seeking to end legalized discrimination against women in Iran, and of an affiliated NGO, Azar Mehr Women’s Organization of Sanandaj.

On 8 Oct 2007, Ronak Safarzadeh attended a meeting in Sanandaj to mark the International Day of the Child and collected signatures in support of the Campaign for Equality. The following morning, Ministry of Intelligence officials reportedly came to her house, confiscated her computer, copies of the Campaign’s petition and a booklet it produced, and arrested her. Her trial began in March 2008 in the presence of her lawyer, where the charges against her were set out. She was accused of being mohareb (at enmity with God), which can carry the death penalty. The charges may stem from accusations of membership of or activities for PJAK, a Kurdish opposition group, and taking part in attacks in Sanandaj, which Ronak Safarzadeh, her family and friends, strenuously deny. Her lawyer is reported to have said that Sarafzadeh’s “confessions” were taken under duress and are not admissible in court.

In January 2009, Ronak Safarzadeh was charged with participating in a hunger strike along with other prisoners in October 2008. On 5 August 2009, the Appeal Court of Kordestan Province confirmed the sentence issued against her. She was sentenced to five years for acting against national security (for membership of the Free Life Party of Kurdistan, PJAK, an armed Kurdish opposition group), another year for propaganda against the government and seven months for illegally crossing a border. Ronak was acquitted of the charge of "being at enmity with God."

You can send Nowruz greetings to Ronak Safarzadeh to:

Safazadeh (for Ronak Safazadeh)
7 Alley/Nimayushij Street
1/17 Faz.Baharan.
Sanandaj
Kordestan Province, Post Code: 66177/48/898
Islamic Republic of Iran

Emadeddin Baghi

Prominent Iranian Journalist and human rights defender Emadeddin Baghi was arrested on 28 December 2009, the day after massive protests were held in Tehran and other cities to mark the Shi'a religious observance of 'Ashura. He is not known to have been charged with a crime. He is in poor health stemming from his previous imprisonment, and Amnesty International is concerned that he could be subjected to ill-treatment and medical neglect while in detention.

Emadeddin Baghi was the 2009 recipient of the prestigious Martin Ennals Award for human rights defenders, although Iranian authorities prevented him from going to Geneva to attend the award ceremony on 9 November 2009. It was the first time in the award's eighteen-year history that the recipient was denied the opportunity to receive the award in person.

Emadeddin Baghi is the founder of the Association for the Defense of Prisoners’ Rights, which had been compiling information on torture and other abuses of detainees. He has focused attention on Iran’s appalling record of executing juvenile offenders, as well as the execution, following grossly flawed legal proceedings, of a number of Iranian Arabs accused of politically motivated crimes. In the late 1990s he exposed the mysterious serial murders of Iranian intellectuals. His books Right to Life and Right to Life II argue for the abolition of the death penalty using Islamic texts and jurisprudence. They have been banned by Iranian authorities--who had previously shut down his newspaper Jomhouriat in 2003-- and Mr. Baghi has served years in prison on charges of “endangering national security” and “printing lies.” In December 2007, during his most recent imprisonment, he suffered three seizures and a heart attack and remained in poor health without adequate medical care until his release in October 2008. Officials closed down the office of the Association for the Defense of Prisoners’ Rights in September 2009.

You can send Nowruz greetings to Emadeddin Baghi to his wife Fatemeh Kamali Ahmad Sarahi at:

Flat #1, 4th floor,
1 Ghaffari Alley
Ekhtiarieh Square – Pasdaran Street
Tehran
Islamic Republic of Iran

Seven Baha'is

Seven leaders of Iran’s Baha’i community are currently on trial on serious, but baseless, charges that could lead to the imposition of the death penalty. Although they have done nothing more than peacefully practice their religion, they have been charged with spying for Israel, for “insulting religious sanctities,” with “propaganda against the system” and with being “mofsed fil arz” or “corruption on earth.” They have denied all charges.

The seven include two women, Fariba Kamalabadi and Mahvash Sabet, and five men: Jamaloddin Khanjani, Afif Naeimi, Saeid Rezaei, Behrouz Tavakkoli and Vahid Tizfahm. All are leading members of a group responsible for the Baha’i community’s religious and administrative affairs. Mahvash Sabet who acted as the group’s secretary, was arrested on 5 March 2008. The others were arrested on 14 May 2008. All seven are held in Section 209 of Evin Prison in Tehran, which is run by the Ministry of Intelligence. They have only been allowed very limited access to their lawyers while they have been in custody.

The first session of their trial—which had been repeatedly postponed—finally began before a Revolutionary Court in Tehran on 12 January 2010. Their next court date is scheduled for 10 April. Amnesty International has repeatedly criticized proceedings held in Iran’s Revolutionary Courts for their failure to adhere to international standards for fair trials. In fact, the authorities attempted to bar the Baha’is’ lawyers from the courtroom on 12 January and only allowed them access after they insisted upon entering.

You can send Nowruz greetings to the seven Baha’is to:

Baha’i International Community
15 route des Morillons

1218 Grand Saconnex Switzerland

Shiva Nazar Ahari

Shiva Nazar Ahari, a member of the Committee of Human Rights Reporters (CHRR), was arrested with two other CHRR members, Kouhyar Goudarzi and Saeed Haeri, on 20 December 2009. Police officers and officials from the Ministry of Intelligence removed them from a bus halted in central Tehran, which was to travel to Qom where those aboard planned attend the 21 December 2009 funeral of Grand Ayatollah Montazeri, a senior cleric who criticized the Iranian government’s crackdown on demonstrators in the aftermath of the June contested presidential elections. Shiva Nazar Ahari has been kept in solitary confinement without charge or access to her lawyers. On 11 February, she told her family by phone that she had been transferred to a “cage-like” solitary confinement cell where she cannot move her arms or legs. She added that she remains under pressure to accept “accusations” made against her, although the nature of these accusations is not clear. Shiva Nazar Ahari, had previously spent three months in detention after her arrest in the wake of the June post-election unrest.

The CHRR has come under particular attack since the disputed June 2009 presidential election. Members of the CHRR have been systematically and arbitrarily arrested and some possibly ill- treated while in custody. Others are currently in hiding. Amnesty International fears that the Iranian authorities have decided to 'make an example' of the CHRR not only by banning it and arresting its members but also by threatening to execute them. At least five members are currently detained. All are at risk of torture or other ill-treatment. They have all been denied access to a lawyer since their arrests. The authorities have accused the group of having links to the banned political opposition group, the Mojahedin-e Khalq or People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI), which the CHRR vehemently denies.

The CHRR was founded in 2006 and campaigns against all kinds of human rights violations, including against women, children, prisoners, workers and others. On or around 21 January 2010, Abbas Ja'fari Dowlatabadi, the Tehran prosecutor told Shiva Nazar Ahari's family in a meeting that: "Experts of the case have reported that the website for the Committee is linked to "hypocrites" (the Iranian authorities' name for the PMOI), and any collaboration with the Committee is considered a crime."

You can send Nowruz greetings to Shiva Nazar Ahari to:

Shahid Madani street ( Nezam Abaad) - Mehran Tayebi Alley,
First floor from right - No 54 , Postal Code 1617785511
Tehran
Islamic Republic of Iran

Arash and Kamiar Alaei

Brothers Arash Alaei and Kamiar Alaei, doctors specializing in the prevention and treatment of HIV and AIDS, were tried on 31 December 2008 for plotting to overthrow the Iranian government and other charges in proceedings that did not meet international standards for fair trial. On 20 January 2009, the brothers were informed that Kamiar Alaei had been sentenced to six years in prison while Arash Alaei had been sentenced to three years.

Arash and Kamiar Alaei had been arrested in June 2008 and held without charge for six months. The brothers were given a one-day trial before Tehran’s Revolutionary Court, along with two other individuals. They were accused of involvement in an attempt to overthrow the government. The prosecutor withheld some of the charges they faced, giving the brothers no opportunity to refute the charges. The prosecutor also submitted secret evidence the brothers’ lawyer did not have the opportunity to examine or refute. The two doctors are known to have been charged under article 508 of Iran’s Islamic Penal Code with “cooperating” with an “enemy government,” which carries a penalty of between one and ten years’ imprisonment.

Amnesty International is concerned the charges against Arash and Kamiar Alaei, and the allegations of their involvement in a plot to overthrow the government, are based solely on vaguely-worded national security laws. Amnesty International believes that the brothers are prisoners of conscience, targeted solely for their internationally recognized medical research and advocacy efforts and for their peaceful collaboration with non-governmental organizations in other countries.

You can send Nowruz greetings to Kamiar and Arash Alaei to:

Velenjak St., 16

Yasaman 2 Blvd

Floor 5, Apartment 3

Alaei

Tehran

Islamic Republic of Iran