Continued Detention of 12 Kurdistan Environmental Activists Without Access to Lawyers and Family
An informed source told the Human Rights Campaign in Iran that 12 environmental activists from Kurdistan who were arrested in December 2018 and January 2019 remain detained in the security detention facilities of the Ministry of Intelligence and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Intelligence Organization in Sanandaj without access to lawyers or family members.
Over twenty environmental activists from Kurdistan Province were arrested in January and December 2018. Both the Ministry of Intelligence and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Intelligence Organization played roles in the detention of these civil activists who mostly worked in the environmental field. An environmental activist in Sanandaj who requested anonymity told the campaign on April 13 that some of the detainees have been released on bail, but 12 remain without contact with lawyers or family members and in complete isolation.
Farhad Mohammadi, Hadi Kamanger, Isa Feizi, Rashed Montazeri, Hossein Kamanger, Armin Asperlos, Avat Karimi, Idris Mohammadi, Farzad Hosseini, Homayoun Bahmani, Siwan Ghorbani and Jalal Rostami remain in detention more than three months after their arrest. This informed source told the campaign that these individuals have had no contact with their families or lawyers except for brief phone calls, and the judicial authorities are not responding to their families’ inquiries: “There have been no visits and we have no information about them. They make brief phone calls with their families every few weeks, but provide no information about where they are being held. Several times families have gone to the Ministry of Intelligence but received no information, and were told: ‘If necessary, we will inform you ourselves.'”
This source told the campaign that some of the initially detained individuals including Fadel Ghitasi, Reza Asadi, Zaniar Zamiran and Amanaj Ghorbani have been released on bail but have refrained from talking to media or making statements due to security warnings and threats. According to this source, the common denominator for most of the detainees is their environmental activities, but these individuals have been informed of other charges as well: “Besides the twelve who are still detained, the others were released on bail ranging from 500 to 700 million tomans. Since their mobile phones and computers were confiscated and they were threatened with silence, they cannot speak. But I managed to speak with one person and understood that everyone is somehow related to the environment, and each has separate charges such as propaganda against the regime, actions against national security, or connections with parties.”
According to the campaign source, some individuals were detained by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Intelligence Organization and others by the Ministry of Intelligence.
According to the Kurdistan Human Rights Network, some of the detained citizens have been interrogated by both the Ministry of Intelligence and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. This organization, which focuses mainly on documenting human rights violations in Kurdistan, reported on April 20 citing an informed source: “These two (Idris Mohammadi and Avat Karimi) were transferred to the Revolutionary Guards Intelligence detention facility, known as the Shahramfar detention center, after interrogation ended at the Sanandaj Intelligence Department detention facility, and we have had no news of them for over a month.”
Crackdowns on campaigns and non-governmental organizations active in environmental protection intensified in early January 2018 with the widespread arrest of environmental activists in Tehran by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Intelligence Organization. Despite the suspicious death of Kavous Seyed-Emami, a university professor and prominent environmental activist, and the Ministry of Intelligence’s announcement that the detainees were not spies, arrests have continued. Despite the Ministry of Intelligence’s opposition to the detention of environmental activists in Tehran, after some time the ministry itself began arresting environmental activists in cities and towns.
Some of the detained individuals are members of the National Unity Party’s Kurdistan branch, which was established with permission from the Ministry of Interior. Farhad Mohammadi, a lawyer and secretary of the National Unity Party; Hadi Kamanger, secretary of the party in Kamyaran city; and Isa Feizi, a member of the Environmental Committee of Kamyaran district, are known members of this party who have been imprisoned for their environmental activities.
Websites and news agencies affiliated with Iranian security forces accuse environmental activists of engaging in espionage under the guise of environmental protection. However, they have so far provided no evidence for such claims. Nevertheless, a number of environmental activists in provinces such as Tehran, Kurdistan, and Shahr-e Kord have spent months in prison without access to fair trials. Despite this, hardline media outlets continue to promote unproven claims against detained individuals.
The campaign source said that a number of lawyers have volunteered to defend the accused, but the Sanandaj Public Prosecutor’s Office has not yet allowed them to enter the case and accept the power of attorney. Environmental activists in Kurdistan have been deprived of legal advice for more than three months, while the right to legal representation and legal advice is one of the most basic rights of the accused, which has been repeatedly emphasized in domestic and international law.
Under Article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which Iran has also signed, the accused, in addition to having a lawyer, must have sufficient time and facilities to defend himself and communicate with his chosen lawyer. The Constitution of the Islamic Republic also stipulates in Article 35 that in “all” courts, litigants have the right to choose lawyers for themselves, and if they do not have the ability to choose a lawyer, they “must” be provided with the means to appoint a lawyer.
According to Articles 48 and 190 of the Criminal Procedure Code adopted in 2013, the accused not only have the right to choose a lawyer, but if the accused is unaware, the court must explicitly inform the accused of the right to choose a lawyer, and deprivation of this right will result in disciplinary punishment for the judge. According to Note 1 of Article 190 of the Criminal Procedure Code: “Depriving the right to have a lawyer and failing to inform the accused of this right respectively result in eighth and third-degree disciplinary punishment.”
Source: Human Rights Campaign
