Narges Mohammadi: I Will Not Participate in Any Show Trial
Narges Mohammadi has described her charges as “baseless and false” and announced that she will not appear in any court to defend herself. She has characterized the legal proceedings as “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 in writing the Zanjan prosecutor and the Tehran prosecutor’s office that she will not appear in any court to defend herself, as she considers their procedures 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 prosecutable.”
According to a report by the “Human Rights Defenders Center,” the prosecutor of Branch 2 of the Zanjan Court of Justice visited the women’s ward of Zanjan Prison on April 6 to take final defense statements from Ms. Mohammadi, but the prisoner refused to cooperate with the “show trial.”
Narges Mohammadi stated that “so far, I have been sentenced to 23 years in prison by three branches of the Islamic Revolution Court of Appeal.” She added: “I announce that I will not appear in the show trials of the judicial system and I accept all of my activities inside Evin Prison, holding sessions and my positions and statements that I have issued from prison over the past years, and I will pay the price for this in this place of exile and under the inhumane conditions imposed on me, and I consider the measures of the Ministry of Intelligence under Mr. Rouhani and the leadership of Evin Prison and the Prison Organization to be malicious, contrary to law and human ethics, and I will not remain silent in the face of it.”
According to the Human Rights Defenders Center, Narges Mohammadi is not permitted to leave the women’s ward of Zanjan Prison even with the presence of security forces and under guard, so that the judicial and administrative procedures that should take place in the prosecutor’s branches are being conducted by sending prosecutors and judicial officials to the women’s ward inside the prison.
After Narges Mohammadi was transferred to Zanjan Prison, six new charges were filed against her in two separate cases in March 2020.
Security officials have described the two new cases as being related to incidents during her imprisonment. The Zanjan prosecutor’s office has introduced “publishing political statements, organizing educational classes and staging a protest sit-in in the women’s ward” as evidence of the new charges.
The prosecutor announced that both cases belong to Tehran and taking the final defense statement has been delegated to the Zanjan prosecutor’s office.
“Tyrannical Imprisonment”
Narges Mohammadi, deputy head and spokesperson of the Human Rights Defenders Center who has been imprisoned since June 5, 2015, was previously sentenced to 16 years in prison on three charges.
Following Ms. Mohammadi’s protest sit-in at Evin Prison in solidarity with nationwide protests in November 2019, she was transferred to Zanjan Prison in December 2019 and further charges were brought against her in two new cases.
The reason for this transfer was Ms. Mohammadi’s sit-in along with several other prisoners in solidarity with victims of floods and earthquakes and the November protests at the Evin Prison administration office. Evin authorities placed the protesters on a visitation ban and denied them telephone contact with their relatives.
In a letter issued on the anniversary of her imprisonment, Narges Mohammadi spoke of “tyrannical 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 denied telephone contact with her children for several months.
Before the letter was released, Ms. Mohammadi’s lawyer announced that her conditional release had been rejected and contrary to the principle of separation of crimes, she is being held alongside dangerous prisoners.
Ezzat Bazergan, Narges Mohammadi’s mother, also wrote a letter to the head of the judiciary criticizing the inhumane conditions at Zanjan Prison, stating: “My daughter has contracted multiple diseases in solitary cells and over the past five years of imprisonment has undergone three major surgeries and in all these years has only taken one three-day leave.”
Source: DW
