Narges Mohammadi: I will not participate in any show trial or court of law

Narges Mohammadi has called the accusations “baseless and false” and has announced that she will not appear in any court to defend herself. She has called the trial “a clear violation of the Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as well as a violation of her own human rights.”

Narges Mohammadi has informed the Zanjan prosecutor and the Tehran prosecutor in writing that she will not appear in any court to defend herself, because she considers their actions to be a "clear violation of the Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as well as a violation of her own human rights, and is subject to prosecution."

According to the "Center for Human Rights Defenders", on May 6, the investigator of Branch 2 of the Zanjan Prosecutor's Office went to the women's ward of Zanjan Prison to obtain the final defense from Ms. Mohammadi, but the prisoner refused to cooperate with the "show and sham court".

Narges Mohammadi has said that “I have been sentenced to 23 years in prison in three appeals branches of the Islamic Revolutionary Court so far.” She added: “I declare that I will not appear in the show trials of the judiciary and I accept every single one of my activities inside Evin Prison, the meetings, stances, and statements I have made from prison over the past years, and I will pay the cost of it in this place of exile and in the inhuman conditions that have been imposed on me. I consider the actions of Mr. Rouhani’s Ministry of Intelligence, the Evin Prison Directorate, and the Prisons Organization to be biased, against the law, and against human morality, and I will not remain silent in the face of it.”

According to the Center for Human Rights Defenders, Narges Mohammadi is prohibited from leaving the women's ward of Zanjan Prison, even with the presence of security forces and under guard, so that judicial and administrative procedures that should have been carried out in the prosecutor's offices are being carried out by sending investigators and judicial agents to the women's ward and inside the prison.

After Narges Mohammadi was transferred to Zanjan Prison, in March 2019, she was informed of six new charges in two cases.

Security officials have named two new cases related to events during their imprisonment. The Zanjan prosecutor's office presents "publishing political statements, holding educational classes, and protest sit-ins in the women's ward" as evidence for the new charges.

The investigator has announced that both cases belong to Tehran and that the Zanjan Prosecutor's Office has been assigned the responsibility of conducting the final defense.

“Cruel imprisonment”

Narges Mohammadi, the vice president and spokesperson for the Center for Human Rights Defenders, who has been in prison since May 5, 2015, was previously sentenced to 16 years in prison on three charges.

Following Ms. Mohammadi's protest sit-in in Evin Prison for supporting the nationwide protests of November 2019, she was transferred to Zanjan Prison in January of last year, and other charges were brought against her in two new cases.

The reason for this transfer was the sit-in that Ms. Mohammadi and several other prisoners held in solidarity with those affected by the floods and earthquakes and the November protests at the Evin Prison office. Evin authorities banned the sit-ins from visiting and deprived them of the right to call their relatives.

In a letter she published on the anniversary of her imprisonment, Narges Mohammadi spoke of her "cruel imprisonment among victims of poverty, corruption, and patriarchal laws."

Narges Mohammadi, a mother of two, suffers from pulmonary embolism and muscular paralysis and has been deprived of phone calls to her children for several months.

Before the publication of the letter, Ms. Mohammadi's lawyer announced that her client had been denied parole and that she was being held alongside dangerous prisoners, contrary to the principle of segregation of crimes.

Ozra Bazargan, Narges Mohammadi's mother, also wrote a letter to the head of the judiciary, criticizing the inhumane conditions of Zanjan Prison, saying: "My daughter has contracted numerous diseases in solitary confinement and has undergone major surgery three times in the last five years of imprisonment, and has only been on leave for three days once in these years."

Source: DW