Labor Activist: Revolutionary Guards Intelligence Used File-Making Against My Wife to Pressure Me

Arash Johari, an imprisoned labor activist, said in an open letter that the Revolutionary Guards Intelligence used information from his case to create a “political file” against his wife, who recently began serving a prison sentence, in order to pressure him.

In a letter published on Wednesday, December 22, Johari stated: “The Revolutionary Guards Intelligence took the process of my case and turned it into its usual scenario of security file-making against civil activists and their families. They created a separate political file against my wife to serve as a pressure lever on me.”

The imprisoned labor activist further stated that during interrogations, he was repeatedly threatened by interrogators that if he did not submit to “forced confessions,” a political file would be created against his wife and she would be dismissed from her nursing job.

Johari was arrested by Revolutionary Guards Intelligence officials in Tehran last spring and was later sentenced to 16 years in prison on charges of “gathering,” “running illegal groups,” and “propaganda against the system,” of which 7 years and 6 months are subject to execution.

In his recent letter, the labor activist called the court hearing on his charges “ceremonial” and said that the judge later told his family that “the verdict was not in my hands.”

Shadi Gilek, Johari’s wife, who works as a nurse, was previously sentenced to one year in prison on charges of “propaganda against the system” and was sent to Evin Prison on December 18 of this year to serve her sentence.

Political and civil prisoners in Iran have repeatedly reported mistreatment of their families and pressure and threats against them.

For example, Arash Sadeghi, a former political prisoner, wrote a letter to the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Iran in May of this year mentioning “torture and harassment of children of political and ideological prisoners,” “deprivation of visits,” “file-making and imprisonment of family members,” “seizure of rights and property,” and “forcing political activists to divorce,” among other cases of violations of the rights of families of political and ideological prisoners in prisons and Iran’s judicial system.

Source: Radio Farda