Omid Memarian
o.memarian@roozonline.com
Two days ago the newsletter belonging to Amir Kabir University published shocking news about the torture of imprisoned students of Amir Kabir University held at Evin prison which are aimed at extracting forced confessions from them. According to the publication, prison interrogators subjected detained students to various forms of bodily and sexual pain and aggravation. It reports that that one an occasion student prisoners were told to lie on their back and then threatened with objects such as bottles, eggs etc. Some prisoners are reported to have attempted suicides due to the tortures inflicted on them by the interrogators and ward 209 staff.
Dr Abdol-Karim Lahijee, the head of the Iranian Human Rights Association and the vice president of the International Federation of Human Rights Leagues spoke to Rooz Online in an exclusive interview and expressed his concerns about the condition of the imprisoned students in Evin. He also expressed his concern because of the existence of similar cases in the past and the suppressive conditions in the country which do not provide for any investigation into human rights violations carried out by Iranian institutions inside the country. Here are the excerpts:
Rooz Online (R): In view of the disturbing news regarding the imprisoned students in Evin, is this cause to believe that torture is in fact on the rise in Iranian prisons?
Abdol-Karim Lahijee (AKL): The issue of investigating torture and mistreatment of prisoners in the Islamic Republic of Iran has been presence since the current regime came to power. Unfortunately there are very few individuals who have been released from Iranian prisons who have not talked of torture while in detention. In some cases, like the death of Zahra Kazemi, we see that torture has even lead to death. In that case, the principal suspect for the death is Saeed Mortezavi, Tehran’s prosecutor.
R: How do you explain the fact that while Mr. Shahroodi (the head of Iran’s Judiciary) repeatedly talks of respect and implementation of citizen’s rights, there have been news leakage reports of prisoners subjected to very alarming treatment while in detention – in this case student activists?
AKL: In the Islamic Republic Of Iran there is no such thing as independence of these organizations from each other. In other words the ministry of intelligence and law enforcement agencies are not independent and separate from the judiciary allowing one to file a complaint with one against the other. One should note that the very same person who is currently the head of the ministry of intelligence and who used to be a judge, the head of a revolutionary court, and head of a special clerical court for many years has passed very harsh and severe punishment ranging from execution to long-term prison sentences. Another example is the current attorney general who is the third highest judiciary official in the country used to be the minister of intelligence. The defendants in the murder cases commonly known as the “serial murders” (through which tens of writers and intellectuals were murdered by elements inside the ministry of intelligence in the 1980s), have said that Mr. Dori Najafabadi was the man behind the decisions for the death sentences of the victims. What I am saying is that there is such a connection between the law enforcement forces, security forces and the judiciary to the point that the situation deprives anyone from going to any agencies to file a complaints against a perpetrator, so that human rights organizations inside and outside Iran have no choice but to take recourse in international institutions and the UN’s Human Rights Council.
As you may know, Shirin Ebadi who is the defense attorney for Iranian-American scholar Haleh Esfandiary who is currently detained in Evin prison has had no recourse but to file a complaint with the United Nations. Regarding the imprisoned students too there is no doubt that without international human rights organizations there is no domestic forum to pursue these issues. The lip service that Mr. Shahroodi pays to implementing citizens rights is similar to the public relations stunts that other authorities of the Islamic republic display through which they claim that Iran is the model of freedom and free expression while accusing even the few newspapers that operate under censorship conditions of working towards a creeping coup d’etat.
R: Does the organization that you head plan to pursue these recent events?
AKL: The International Federation of Human Rights Leagues is among the organizations that acts as a consultant to the UN’s Human Rights Council. We have already filed complaints to the UN Commission on Human Rights regarding these violations. One of the issues that was raised during the talks between the European Union and the government of Iran was torture and stoning, especially as it is said that Mr. Shahroodi has issued decrees banning the practice. We have repeatedly said that stoning amounts to torture, which leads to death. The last official case that we pursued on these matters was the murder case related to Iranian-Canadian journalist Zahra Kazemi. Another case relates to Iranians that have dual citizenship. It should be noted that the day after Haleh Esfandiary was displayed on Iranian television, her husband Shaul Bakhash said that in her TV talk Haleh was using words and expressions he had never heard her use before. This indicates that what she was saying were not her own words and that they had forced her to memorize their statement or read it out. This is a clear case of psychological torture. We have repeatedly raised this issue and now unfortunately students face the same kind of pressure and torture. We have no doubt that the authorities have specific plans and schemes for them as well and wish to subject them to similar type of forced confessions and thus subject them to similar coercions.
