Over 50 Lawyers Protest the Arrest of ‘Plaintiff Lawyers’
A number of court lawyers have sent a letter to the head of the judiciary demanding the immediate release of detained lawyers. The signatories of this letter have condemned the arrest of “plaintiff lawyers” and called for the prosecution and pursuit of those responsible.
Six court lawyers and civil activists were arrested on the 23rd of Mordad of the current year. These individuals intended to file complaints against officials of the Islamic Republic in connection with mismanagement and failure to take timely action regarding coronavirus vaccine imports and addressing the resulting crisis.
The lawyers were Mostafa Nili, Leila Haidari, Arash Keykhosravi, Mohammad Reza Faqihi, and civil activists Mehdi Mahmooudian and Maryam Afrafrazi.
Leila Haidari was released on the 24th of Mordad. She, along with a number of court lawyers, is working on drafting a letter addressed to the head of the judiciary.
The magazine “Our Law” posted four consecutive posts on its Twitter account regarding the letter from this group of court lawyers.
In a Twitter post, the aforementioned source quoted from the lawyers’ letter, stating that the arrest of these lawyers and civil activists is unlawful.
The signatories of this letter not only condemned the arrest of these lawyers but also called for their immediate release. The court lawyers wrote in this letter, citing Article 34 of the Islamic Republic’s constitution regarding the right to petition for justice: “Taking steps to petition for justice in relation to the coronavirus management crisis and the failures and negligence of those responsible, by a group of lawyers and civil activists, is lawful and devoid of any criminal act.”
Hadi Ghaemi, director of the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, also called the “collective arrest of lawyers and civil activists even before the complaint was filed” unprecedented, referring to it as a manifestation of the continued security pressure on lawyers.
Ghaemi has asked the International Bar Association to protest the “arbitrary” arrest of these lawyers and civil activists and to call for their release.
The Iran Human Rights Campaign website, quoting Saeed Dehghan, a human rights lawyer, described the arrest of this group of lawyers and civil activists as a sign of the government’s “growing fear” of petition for justice.
Source: DW
