Letter exposing fabricated charges against four Sunni prisoners

HRANA News Agency – Iranian state-run media has broadcast a number of documentaries about Sunni prisoners in recent weeks, many featuring clips of Sunni prisoners who had been tortured apparently testifying against themselves and other prisoners.

 

Following the most recent documentary, broadcast on 14 March 2014, about four Sunni prisoners who have been sentenced to death, a letter from their representative provides evidence exposing the fabricated charges against them.

 

The full text of the letter which has been published by HRANA is as below:

 

“In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful,

 

Evidence to reject the accusations made in a documentary aired on the state News channel against four Sunni prisoners.

 

On Friday, 14 March 2014 at 8:30pm, a documentary was broadcast [on Iranian state-run media] which named the four prisoners of conscience that were mentioned by Amnesty International. [The documentary] called into question the whole international system, and Amnesty International, and presented Iran as the only country which truly observes the principles of human rights.

 

In this documentary, they attributed charges to these oppressed Sunnis, including the [charges of] the assassination of a Sunni figure called Mamousta Shaykhol-Islam, and other charges including assassination, having a cache of weapons, and many other things.

Now I want to clarify to the entire world the cases of these youth, with a few evidences:

 

1. The prisoners listed were [already] in detention in the Ministry of Intelligence in Sanandaj when the assassination of Mamousta Shaykh-ol-Islam took place, as follows:

 

– Jamshed and Jahangir Dehghani, two brothers from a poor family, were arrested on 17 June 2009.

 

– Kamal Molayee was arrested on 14 July 2009.

 

– Hamed Ahmadi, who is married, was arrested on 30 July 2009.

 

At the same time, the government has repeatedly attributed this killing to Loghman Amini, who has been imprisoned for four years in the Ministry of Intelligence in Sanandaj, and he also allegedly ‘confessed’ to the assassination of this Sunni cleric. And in the documentaries broadcast in the national media, the assassination was presented as taking place on 17 September 2009.

 

Looking at the dates of the assassination and the arrests, you are able to better judge the evil conspiracies against these Sunni youth. [And judge how] by taking advantage of this assassination, and the feelings provoked by it, how they exploited this theory [against] the Sunnis, and it has been used as a stick to [beat and] suppress the Sunni youth.

 

Even [in a previous] year, the government executed by hanging six Sunnis for the same charge, on 27 December 2012 in Ghezel Hesar prison.

 

2. These four prisoners have been on long hunger strikes several times, and in these hunger strikes their only request was to have a retrial of these charges in a fair and open court, with the presence of an appointed lawyer.

 

Six prisoners were executed on 27 December 2012, and the death sentence for four people was [also] issued, and now they are held in Rajai Shahr prison. They were tried in a sham and dummy trial chaired by [Judge] Mohammad Moghisseh, without the right to a lawyer and with a ‘lawyer’ designated by the Ministry of Intelligence. In ten minutes, ten people were sentenced to death with insults and slander, for [the charges of] ‘Moharabeh’ (enmity against God) and ‘acting against national security’, without the right to protest, [their death sentence] was after around two years in solitary confinement.

 

The hunger strike of these youth is as follows:

 

18 February 2013 until 16 march 2013 – for 27 days.

 

24 September until 3 October 2013 – for 8 days.

 

4 November 2013 until 17 February 2014 – for 75 days.

 

And each time, the strikes have been broken because of the promise of the judicial authorities to hold a public and fair [re-] trial, but so far these promises have not been kept.

 

3. These prisoners have frequently declared their innocence from the charges against them through filmed statements on social networks and the media, which are now available on YouTube [click here], and through letters and appeals to the international community, and their demand was that ‘if we have done something, why was our trial not public, so the world can see the truth?’

 

4. These four have explicitly said that they do not know each other outside [prison], and they were not even from the same neighborhood in Sanandaj [except for Jamshed and Jahangir Dehghani who are brothers].

 

It is just a conspiracy and a fabricated case that they have been placed in, that with physical, psychological and emotional torture they were forced to sign and stamp some papers, and they [authorities] promised them and their families freedom, and threatened their families in this case. They have been kept under suppression for several years yet their voices have reached the human rights organisations and international organisations, and [the authorities] have panicked and they don’t know how to cover these crimes.

 

5. Where is this weapons cache that [the authorities allege that] the prisoners had? Why was it not filmed and publicized, as is the usual procedure for the Ministry of Intelligence, that if anyone discovered the smallest thing they would immediately make a documentary and show it to the world?

 

Now I want a verdict from all the intellectual and humanitarian people of the world, why are their cases not public? Why does the government not want the world to know about this?

 

So I, on behalf of the Sunni Kurd prisoners, to the entire international community and human rights organisations and the world’s free media, I ask them to save the lives of these Sunni youth. They are at risk of execution at any moment. Begin your activities and do not fail, and show the world the truth, because the Iranian national media has begun to broadcast documentaries, and it is likely they want to prepare the public’s opinion for this crime [of executing innocent people].

 

“The children of Adam (as) [humans] are limbs of one body,

having been created from one essence,

when one member is afflicted with pain,

the others will feel the same,

if you are indifferent to the suffering of others,

the name of human you can not claim.”

 

[Poetry by Persian Sunni poet Sa’adi Shirazi, not a literal translation.]

 

With gratitude and thanks, from the representative of Sunni prisoners in Evin, Ghezel Hesar and Rajai Shahr prisons,

 

Eeman Kurdistani.”

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