Summoning of ‘Iman Soleimani’, Court-Appointed Lawyer to Prosecutor’s Office
‘Iman Soleimani’, a court-appointed lawyer and legal representative of Christian citizens, has been summoned to the prosecutor’s office in Bandar Mahshahr.
According to a report released by the ‘Daban Educational and Legal Consultation Center’, Mr. Soleimani is required to appear at the aforementioned branch on the 26th of Dey month, in response to a summons issued to him by the Second Prosecution Branch of the Public and Revolutionary Prosecutor’s Office of Bandar Mahshahr.
Iman Soleimani is one of the court-appointed lawyers who undertakes the legal representation and defense of a group of Christian citizens and prisoners of conscience. He has defended Christian citizens (particularly those who converted from Islam to Christianity) against charges of ‘propaganda against the system’ and ‘actions against national security’ based on their Christian beliefs and peaceful religious activities, despite the lack of any evidence or documentation, following which prison sentences were imposed on them.
According to statements by ‘Hossein Ahmadi-Nezhad’, a court-appointed lawyer and member of the International Union of Bar Associations who has also undertaken the legal representation of many prisoners of conscience, regarding the summoning of Iman Soleimani: ‘Mr. Lawyer Iman Soleimani is a court-appointed lawyer who has honorably and freely undertaken the legal representation of numerous cases of Christian converts and has continuously been under surveillance, threatened, and informally summoned by the security and judicial authorities of the Islamic Republic, which have now formally summoned him.
I have reliable information that on several occasions they have threatened him with demands for his resignation and rejection of Christian converts as clients, but he has not succumbed to these threats and illegal demands and remains committed to his oath of honorable legal practice and defense. Therefore, his summoning is part of the systematic and targeted suppression of honorable court-appointed lawyers by the regime.’
Hossein Ahmadi also added regarding the suppression of lawyers by judicial authorities: ‘It can be said with absolute certainty that the pinnacle of historical suppression of court-appointed lawyers in Iran is the suppression of Iranian court-appointed lawyers by the Islamic Republic regime during the Woman, Life, Freedom movement, which is unparalleled in the world, and no country in the world or throughout history has exercised such suppression against court-appointed lawyers.’
