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Nooshabeh Amiri

Emadeddin Baghi was scheduled to be admitted to a hospital, but instead ended up in ‎ward 209 of the notorious top-security Evin prison at the foots of the Alborz mountains in ‎Tehran, Iran. Baghi is a prominent Iranian investigative reporter and founder of the ‎Association for Political Prisoners’ Rights. This is not his first ‘visit’ to the ward: he had ‎been imprisoned before too for his expose of the murders of writers and intellectuals ‎perpetrated by Iran’s security apparatus in the 1990s which are commonly known as the ‎serial murders cases. Even his wife, Fatemeh Kamali Ahmad Sarayi, and daughter have ‎been sentenced by courts. “Taking him back to ward 209 of Evin has no legal basis”, cry ‎exclaims his wife who believes that this is the very place where her husband lost his ‎health. She believes that the reason why her husband continues to be incarcerated and ‎mistreated is summed up in one word: the serial murders. We spoke with Fatemeh about ‎her husband’s condition. Read on for the details.‎

Rooz (R): Has Mr. Baghi been taken to a solitary cell again?‎
Fatemeh Kamali Ahmad-Sarayi (FKAS): Yes. He called me from prison last Saturday ‎and told me that the resident doctor had prescribed that he be transferred to the hospital. ‎At noon he called again and said that he had been ordered to pack up his belongings to be ‎transferred to ward 209 of the prison. [Ward 209 of Evin prison is controlled by the ‎ministry of intelligence where it conducts its interrogations.] He asked me to tell his ‎attorneys that he would not stoop to any form of interrogation under these illegal ‎conditions. He had said the same thing at the trial session when he was pressured to be ‎interrogated again. This is because ward 209 contains solitary cells and Mr. Baghi ‎believes that interrogations under those conditions are illegal, and he is not willing to ‎engage in an illegal act.‎

R: What is the meaning of sending a prisoner who has already been sentenced and is ‎serving his term to ward 209?‎
FKAS: I have this question too. Sending him to ward 209 has absolutely no legal basis. ‎Even if the pretext for it is the suit against the Association for Political Prisoners’ Rights, ‎which may be possible. The suit over the Association is now in progress and its first ‎session was held a while ago and a second hearing has been scheduled. So returning his ‎case to the prosecutor or the ministry of intelligence is an unlawful act. As a principal, the ‎ministry of intelligence cannot be part of the prosecution team or process. If this is related ‎to another case, then too they cannot take someone from the general ward to a solitary ‎cell and interrogate him again.‎

R: So what is the meaning of this act? Mr. Baghi could not have committed a new crime ‎while in prison.‎
FKAS: When cases are scrutinized by the public, it notices that none of the suspects in ‎the cases deserve to be in prison. Mr. Baghi himself used to say that in the suit against the ‎Association there was nothing illegal associated with its activities, so they could not ‎prosecute or sentence him over that. I announce that they will gain nothing by isolating a ‎person and subjecting him to white torture. Even when he was in the general ward, they ‎had confiscated all his books, which included the newspapers and magazines that I had ‎sent him. And when there were ten days left for his trial, they confined him to a solitary ‎cell, thus denying him to even write his own defense. He had written the details of his ‎time in the solitary cell to Mr. Shahrudi (the head of the country’s Judiciary branch of ‎government). Now again they have taken him to the same place where his health began to ‎deteriorate.‎

R: Now tell me about … ‎
FKAS: May I ask a few questions too so that I can find someone to respond? All ‎domestic media are under pressure and constrains when reporting about prisons in ‎general and political prisoners in particular. They do not reply to our letters. Our pursuit ‎of cases also does not produce any results.‎

R: Please go do.‎
FKAS: My question is whether this indifference to the conditions of a human rights ‎activist, journalist, or scholar in a country whose authorities claim to be dedicated to ‎justice and constantly prescribe judicial and egalitarian standards to other nations ‎appealing? I am asking from the Majlis and the representatives: While you are ‎responsible for passing the major laws of the land, but do you think you have ‎accomplished anything if you write the best laws but do not monitor or supervise their ‎implementation? Most of my letters have been written to the head of the judiciary and in ‎them I have explained the unlawfulness of many activities and white torture that my ‎husband had been subjected to. Why does nobody take the responsibility to investigate ‎the complaints of a citizen? Baghi is entangled in numerous cases. What illegal activity ‎has he carried out to deserve these complaints which aggravate him and his family, ‎denying them any peace? Why must his health be jeopardized in the detention centers of ‎the ministry of intelligence? Why is a prisoner who is under the control of judiciary ‎officials taken away in violation of existing rules and put at the disposal of authorities ‎who are not under any judicial control or oversight? If something happens to Baghi, can ‎one simply say that this was just an incident? I went to see him last Monday, like I do ‎every Monday of the week, only to learn that they had suspended his visitations. They ‎said that perhaps next week, if the ministry of intelligence approved. But why? What is it ‎that awaits my husband in ward 209?‎

R: I am sure you have many questions. Let me ask you do you believe that transferring ‎Emadeddin back to ward 209 signals the beginning of a new round of white torture which ‎is supposed to lead to the results that these gentlemen desire?‎
FKAS: We had published Baghi’s letter to Mr. Shahrudi. Please read it and there is your ‎answer. After seeing what they did to my husband 2 months ago, do I now have no right ‎to be concerned? When we contacted our defense lawyer, he expressed ignorance about ‎Baghi’s transfer to the solitary cell. Would you not be concerned? Which authority has ‎issued the orders to transfer my husband to a solitary cell, particularly on the very day ‎that he was scheduled to be taken to a hospital for treatment for his heart ailments? Until ‎now, we used to explain each suit against him individually, but now the cases are so ‎many that we can only publish a group response for all the cases so that this episode ‎becomes clearer to the public. How is it possible to prosecute a person multiple times in a ‎one-year period? When you take a perspective look at the cases, the answers to your ‎questions will emerge.‎

R: Now that you have seen all the cases against him, if you had to summarize them, what ‎is the roots cause for treating Baghi in this manner? What is the key central reason why ‎they are putting him under this pressure?‎
FKAS: I personally think that the Association is merely an excuse. All his activities at the ‎Association, on which the cases against are based, lack any foundation, according to the ‎attorneys. Even the judge in the case was not convinced about the charges of revealing ‎classified top secret documents and said that all the points that the prosecutors raised in ‎their statement that constituted their charges was publicly available information that had ‎either been published in local newspapers or had been communicated to the Association ‎by family members of prisoners. The others charges were similar in this regard. This very ‎one-year sentence for which he is now spending time in prison, concerns the publication ‎of a few articles for which he had already spent 3 years in prison. It is shocking to know ‎that a person is prosecuted twice for the same act. And that too, by a court hearing that ‎lasted only 2 minutes! In that trial, the defendant was denied any opportunity to defend ‎himself. They sent a person to prison without any hearing by the suspect.‎

R: So the basis for the court sentence are the interrogation papers?‎
FKAS: Yes. Legal conditions for interrogations have been defined very clearly. A person ‎is summoned to the prosecutor’s office where he is interrogated by a judiciary authority. ‎But in Baghi’s case things were different. On November 21st, division 6 of the ‎revolutionary court issued a sentence for which my husband has already spent 55 days in ‎prison. The sentence was for 1 year suspended sentence. Tehran’s prosecutor objected to ‎the sentence, and ..‎

R: Meaning Mr. Mortezavi?‎
FKAS: Yes, he requested that the sentence not be suspended, and the court accepted, ‎sending the case back to the appellate court. The court changed the sentence to be ‎implemented immediately. ‎

R: So what is Baghi being really punished for?‎
FKAS: When I put all of these things together, I do not conclude that Baghi as a human ‎rights activist is so dangerous to raise the sensitivities of the authorities, thus completely ‎disrupting his life. Unless we think that Baghi’s actions were so serious that they did ‎infringe on the sensitivities of the authorities and …‎

R: And what are those sensitivities?‎
FKAS: The more I search, the more I am convinced that it is the serial killers case.‎

R: And since that case has not been closed, one can deduce that Mr. Baghi is today in the ‎hands of those who have had a hand in the case relating to the serial murders?‎

FKAS: Look, all I can say is that Baghi’s activities and work was all within the bounds of ‎law. So why must he remain in prison is a question that I have. Why must he be sent to a ‎solitary confinement ward and be subjected to intense interrogations when he is ill? You ‎can make your own conclusions. I have raised this question thousands of times with ‎authorities and whoever else I could lay my hands on. Many of these people do not have ‎an answer for this while many also express their dissatisfaction. So what do you think ‎remains in mind, and the mind of other citizens?‎

R: What is your principal concern these days?‎
FKAS: Baghi’s health. As I speak with you, I have absolutely no information about his ‎condition. All I see is that he is a solitary confinement cell in ward 209, under conditions ‎that he described to me when he was thee the last time, where he was kept for two and a ‎half months. Anything can happen there. And I hold only the ministry of intelligence and ‎authorities that allow the ministry of intelligence to treat the citizens of this country in ‎this manner responsible for his well being.‎

R: The ministry of intelligence is part of a larger structure, do you also hold the ‎government … ‎
FKAS: Let me respond this way. Mr. Baghi is in prison under the control of the judiciary. ‎My question from the judiciary therefore is under what rules and regulations has it ‎allowed Baghi to be transferred to ward 209 of Evin prison and to the ministry of ‎intelligence? I want to know who is responsible for this for me to deal with. Which judge ‎has issued orders for such a transfer? If there is a new case against him, I want to know ‎the judge who has ordered him to be transferred to an interrogation ward while he is ill ‎and suffers from heart ailments and was scheduled to be taken to a hospital for treatment. ‎How long must we wait until we hear responses to our questions? Till when must this ‎family remain under tension? Till when must we suffer from this pressure?‎

R: Apparently two other members of your family, i.e. yourself and your daughter too ‎have suits against yourself?‎
FKAS: The sentence against us went to an appellate court, where according to the ‎judiciary spokesperson, it was upheld. Still, we protested about the sentence to the ‎judiciary, and the case was sent to another court. And even though the decision of the ‎appellate court contained very detailed information, we were repeatedly summoned to ‎court to respond to questions. Until the judgment was upheld.‎

R: What is the last thing that this family can do?‎
FKAS: These protests and complaints. What else can we do? I have told all the officials ‎that this case will not have a good future. It can endanger the life of a citizen. But what is ‎the meaning of this indifference over the life of a person who has lived within the ‎confines of the laws of the country?‎

R: How much hope is there that these words and actions will produce results?‎
FKAS: I do not like hopelessness. But I do know that they have taken away my rights by ‎force and coercion. Those who have the power have done it and continue to disregard my ‎rights.‎

R: You mean those in authority have violated your rights?‎
FKAS: Absolutely. Now you tell me, what can I do as an defenseless citizen? This is the ‎question that I raise with the authorities.‎