Amnesty International: IRAN Ya’qoub Mehrnehad (m), aged 28, member of Iran’s Baluchi minority
A Judiciary spokesman confirmed at a press conference on 19 February that Ya’qoub Mehrnehad had been sentenced to death.
Judiciary spokesman Ali Reza Jamshidi told the press conference that Ya’qoub Mehrnehad had been sentenced to death for “contacts with the Jondallah group”, but also said that the sentence was open to appeal before the Supreme Court. Ya’qoub Mehrnehad was sentenced to death after an unfair trial and may have been tortured. He may have been arrested solely for his peaceful exercise of his rights to freedom of expression and association during his journalism and his activities as head of a legally registered NGO, The Voice of Justice Young People’s Society (VJYPS), which organises events such as concerts and educational courses for young Baluchi people and raises funds to help the poor.
On the day of the press conference, Ya’qoub Mehrnehad was permitted a visit by his family, the first for about two months. His family were summoned at short notice. During that meeting, they were told to speak only in Persian, not Baluchi. According to a Baluchi source, Ya’qoub Mehrnehad told his family, “I am not guilty and this has happened unjustly and if I am executed, people will know that I have been executed without [having committed] a crime.”
Ya’qoub’s 16-year-old brother Ebrahim, Ebrahim’s 16-year-old friend, and two other Baluchi men who are members of VJYPShave been arrested, according to local Baluchi sources, and are in grave danger of torture. Their whereabouts are unknown. See UA 68/08, MDE 13/048/2008, 12 March 2008.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
The Baluchi armed group, the People’s Resistance of Movement of Iran (PRMI), formerly known as Jondallah has carried out a number of attacks on Iranian officials and has sometimes taken hostages and killed them. It reportedly seeks to defend the rights of the Baluchi people, though government officials have claimed that it is involved in drug smuggling and terrorist activities and has ties to foreign governments.
Attacks by the PRMI have been followed by widespread arrests of members of the Baluchi minority, many of whom Baluchi sources claim are not connected to the attacks. In 2007, at least 312 people, and perhaps many more, were executed in Iran. There was a marked rise in the number of Baluchis executed.
RECOMMENDED ACTION: Please send appeals to arrive as quickly as possible, in English, French, Arabic, Persian or your own language:
- calling on the authorities not to execute Ya’qoub Mehrnehad, and to commute his death sentence immediately;
- asking for details of the charges against Ya’qoub Mehrnehad, by which court he was tried, whether he had a lawyer of his own choice, whether he has been able to exercise his right to appeal against his conviction and sentence;
- expressing concern at reports that he has been tortured, and reminding the authorities that the use of confessions extracted under duress is prohibited by Article 38 of the Constitution of Iran;
- urging that he be released if he has been detained solely for the peaceful exercise of his rights to freedom of expression and association.
APPEALS TO:
Head of the Judiciary
Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi
Howzeh Riyasat-e Qoveh Qazaiyeh / Office of the Head of the Judiciary
Pasteur St., Vali Asr Ave., south of Serah-e Jomhouri, Tehran 1316814737, Islamic Republic of Iran
Email: info@dadgostary-tehran.ir (In the subject line write: FAO Ayatollah Shahroudi)
Salutation: Your Excellency
Leader of the Islamic Republic
His Excellency Ayatollah Sayed ‘Ali Khamenei
The Office of the Supreme Leader, Islamic Republic Street - Shahid Keshvar Doust Street
Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran
Email: info@leader.ir
Salutation: Your Excellency
Governor of Sistan - Baluchistan province
Mr Dahmarde, Governor
Fax: +98 541 3231990
E-mail: info@sb-ostan.ir
Salutation: Dear Sir
COPIES TO:
President
His Excellency Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
The Presidency, Palestine Avenue, Azerbaijan Intersection, Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran
Email: dr-ahmadinejad@president.ir
(via website) www.president.ir/email/
Speaker of Parliament
His Excellency Gholamali Haddad Adel
Majles-e Shoura-ye Eslami, Baharestan Square, Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran
Fax: +98 21 3355 6408
Email: hadadadel@majlis.ir (Ask for your message to be passed to the Article 90 Commission)
and to diplomatic representatives of Iran accredited to your country.
one must not forget that one aspect of “security” cases is the image that they carry for the groups that advance such issues. Therefore, before fake charges take to the news-media and become public, those who have had a hand in arresting the students must be weakened. Otherwise, after the severe charges are made public, repeated and are tied to the image of the actors, even the intervention of the head of the judiciary (as history demonstrates) cannot be of much help to the detainees.
How can we tell the judiciary officials of Iran that according to law juveniles can stay alive and continue to live with appropriate and suitable punishment? How must one make this request from the judiciary a public and wide-spread demand and point out that killing a juvenile who has not wholeheartedly committed an act does not solve any of the real problems facing the country?
it is easy to predict that the success of student activists in imposing their will and demands on government officials at academic institutions, such as the Teachers Training college and Zanjan University (where the students boldly took the initiative into their own hands), would result in a backlash by extreme right-wing officials who would plan an “instructive” counter-attack against the student movement.Hopefully such a reaction will not come. But from an analytic perspective, one must not negate it altogether.
This is the reason that the moment imprisoned students step out of prison, it becomes clear to every one why they were put behind bars: for simply criticizing the president. It becomes instantly clear why they were subjected to interrogations and what questions were asked of them. These are the events that portray the image of this country. Students, social activists and journalists are certainly not on the list of those that dent this image. The publication of the arrest of students because of their criticism of the president brings forth a caricature image of Mahmud Ahmadinejad which does not match the claims that he made at Columbia University or the image that the regime strives to present about its standing.
There are at least 70 young people on death row who at the time of their arrest were under the age of 16. In the past 12 months, Iranian organisations claim that 80 feminists have been arrested and 20 of them have been sentenced from three to five years in jail. A total of 54 journalists have ended up in prison, several were released without trial after serving jail time, while others remain behind bars. In the past 12 months, 34 newspapers and magazines, among them the feminist magazine Zanan, have been shut down.
