Narges Mohammadi: I am banned from leaving and they won’t issue me a passport
Narges Mohammadi, a civil activist and vice-president of the Human Rights Defenders Center, told Deutsche Welle that three judicial officials have issued orders banning her from leaving the country and prohibiting the issuance of a passport for her. She intended to travel to France to see her children after five years.
The Prosecutor General, the Tehran Prosecutor, and the head of Evin Prosecution Office, through three separate letters dated October 3 and 10, have ordered the passport office to refrain from issuing a passport to Narges Mohammadi. These three officials have also stated that Ms. Mohammadi is not permitted to leave the country.
Narges Mohammadi, a civil activist, prisoner rights defender, and advocate of the campaign to abolish capital punishment step by step, was released from prison on October 17 this year after enduring five and a half years of continuous imprisonment and two and a half years she had previously spent in prison.
The vice-president of the Human Rights Defenders Center told Deutsche Welle that two weeks after her release, she took steps to obtain a passport and have the travel ban lifted, as her passport had been confiscated during a trip to Guatemala in April 2009 to participate in a women’s conference, and she had been banned from leaving.
She initially went to the Tehran Prosecutor’s Office to meet with Tehran Prosecutor Ali Qassi Mehr in person, but the prosecutor told her that he could not comment on her travel ban.
Ms. Mohammadi then went to the Evin Prosecution Office and spoke with its head, Amin Naseri. He made the same statement.
Narges Mohammadi then went to the passport office. The relevant officer spoke with her for nearly two hours and told her she was banned from leaving and could not obtain a passport. This officer suggested she go to the office of the Presidential Institution at the passport office.
Finally, at this office, she was told that she had been banned from leaving through three judicial orders issued by three judicial officials and she did not have the right to obtain a passport.
According to the Presidential Institution based at the passport office, initially on October 3, just five days before Narges Mohammadi’s release from prison, the Tehran Prosecutor and the head of Evin Prosecution Office, and a week later on October 10, Mohammad Jafar Montazeri, the Prosecutor General, sent letters to this institution notifying them of the travel ban and passport issuance ban for Narges Mohammadi.
This means that during all the days when Ms. Mohammadi visited the prosecutor’s office and Evin Prosecution Office and pursued her case regarding the travel ban, while they claimed to be unaware, they had themselves issued this order and notified the passport office.
“I will definitely object”
Narges Mohammadi said she will definitely appeal this order: “My travel ban is illegal and I am filing a complaint against those who illegally issued this order. This shows that there is a will beyond the law in the judicial and security system that can easily deprive individuals of their rights.”
Since 2015, after the beginning of her second prison sentence, Narges Mohammadi has not seen her children. Ali and Kiyana went to France to their father, Tagi Rahmani, one month after their mother’s arrest.
During this time, Narges Mohammadi has been deprived of phone contact with her children for a total of two years: July 2015 to July 2016 and August 2019 to August 2020.
Ali and Kiyana Rahmani have asked in a video that the travel ban on their mother be lifted so that these two children can see their mother after more than five and a half years.
Source: DW
