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Omid Memarian
o.memarian@roozonline.com‎

Nemat Ahmadi is a known personality in Iran’s political circles. He has been the defense ‎attorney for many political cases. In an exclusive interview with Rooz he says that many ‎detentions and imprisonments are unlawful in the Islamic Republic of Iran simply ‎because the bails that are set by the judges are extremely disproportionate and high, ‎making it impossible for the victims to meet them and thus keeping them behind bars. ‎Here are the excerpts.
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Rooz (R): It appears that judges have been posting disproportional bails for detainees ‎with political charges in recent years. What are the issues that must be considered when ‎determining the amount of bail for a prisoner?‎

Nemat Ahmadi (NA): In law, there is a specific meaning to bail which is a guarantee that ‎a detainee will appear in court on the day of trail or hearing. Nine points are mentioned in ‎the code of civil procedure in this regard. So the amount is not something that a judge can ‎decide on his own. Bail has to be proportionate and the law has determined what that ‎means. Our judges however do not observe these rules. The result is that because the ‎amount of bail cannot be met by the detainees, the situation leads to the continuation of ‎the detention of a person, which constitutes an unlawful detention. This is something that ‎is used against political prisoners in Iran.‎

R: While the judiciary in the Islamic Republic has been stating that its policy is to reduce ‎the number of prisoners, we see that in some cases such as that of Hosseinkhah, a woman ‎activist, the amount of bail does not meet the standards that you mention .. .‎

NA: Yes, speaking in the capacity of leading the judiciary, Mr Shahrudi has spoken about ‎reducing the number of prisoners, while this must take place before the trial takes place. I ‎other words, they must do something so that we do not have 800,000 people entering the ‎prison. I think if some form of supervision takes place over the judges, most of these ‎arrests are merely minor violations, and according to the Islamic penal code must result ‎in judicial terminations, whereas arrests have been issued for them.‎