Two Human Rights Organizations Warn of Severe Pressure on Iranian Lawyers, Demand Immediate Release of Mohammad Najafi
The independent foundation “Lawyers for Lawyers” based in the Netherlands and the Human Rights Campaign in Iran announced today in a joint statement that Mohammad Najafi, a lawyer in Iran, who since autumn 2018 has been illegally and unjustly serving a 54-month prison sentence solely for defending civil and political freedoms, must be immediately released.
Hadi Ghomi, director of the Human Rights Campaign in Iran, said: “Mr. Najafi has faced consecutive fabricated convictions to keep him behind bars, because authorities fear his power and determination to speak the truth and defend fundamental human rights.”
According to Hadi Ghomi, “Lawyers are the last line of defense against despots who silence and suppress all opponents; when these defenders cannot do their job fully, the entire society becomes imprisoned.”
The Persian text of this joint statement is as follows:
The foundation “Lawyers for Lawyers” and the Human Rights Campaign in Iran call on the authorities of the Islamic Republic to immediately and unconditionally release Mr. Mohammad Najafi, a human rights lawyer. Mohammad Najafi has been detained solely for legal and peaceful activities, and his prosecution is baseless and has no legal merit.
Based on Article 35 of Iran’s Constitution, people have the right to choose a lawyer for themselves in all courts, and therefore it must be ensured in all circumstances that all lawyers in Iran are able to perform their professional activities without any fear or intimidation. Intimidation that results from retaliatory actions, harassment, and countless restrictions imposed by judicial and security institutions.
We also call on the international community, including the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the UN Human Rights Council, UN special rapporteurs on human rights concerning Iran, on human rights defenders and independence of judges and lawyers, as well as all UN member states, to demand with all their power that Iranian authorities immediately and unconditionally release Mr. Najafi.
It is essential to emphasize that given Mr. Najafi’s history of heart disease and other serious illnesses, and according to Articles 502 and 522 of Iran’s Criminal Procedure Code, if imprisonment exacerbates the disease, a prison sentence can be suspended or reduced to a monetary fine.
We strongly condemn the prolonged and continuous harassment of Mr. Najafi by the judicial authorities. While Mohammad Najafi had previously been harassed, detained, and arrested by Iranian authorities for years because of his peaceful and pro-democracy activities, in 2018 he investigated the suspicious death of Vahid Heydari, one of the detainees from people’s street protests in the city of Arak. A protester who was arrested during the December 2017 protests and died while in police custody.
Mohammad Najafi had previously told the Human Rights Campaign in Iran that “this young man was a protester who was arrested and then beaten and killed.”
Najafi was sentenced to three years in prison and 74 lashes for his efforts and reporting about local prison authorities’ attempts to cover up the cause of Vahid Heydari’s death in August 2018, on charges of “disturbing public order” and “spreading falsehoods.” His sentence was upheld in September 2018 and Mohammad Najafi was transferred to Arak Central Prison to serve his sentence.
Mohammad Najafi had previously been sentenced to three years of solitary confinement on charges of “insulting the leadership” by Branch 2 of the Arak Revolutionary Court. Mr. Najafi was also sentenced in mid-December 2018 by Branch 1 of the Arak Revolutionary Court on charges of “propaganda against the system,” “insulting the leadership,” and “assisting a hostile state through interviews with Voice of America, Radio Farda and BBC Persian” to 10 years in prison, and was also sentenced to one year in prison for “disturbing public opinion” through posting critical content about the Islamic Republic on social media.
In December 2019, Mr. Najafi was sentenced to two years in prison on charges of “spreading falsehoods with intent to disturb public opinion” for publishing an open protest letter that he had written to the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran in September 2018. He was also sentenced to six months in solitary confinement for speaking at a memorial service for Sattar Beheshti, a blogger who died under torture in police custody. In June 2021, he was also sentenced to imprisonment on charges of “propaganda against the system” for calling for a boycott of presidential elections, demanding changes to the constitution, and calling for the removal of Khamenei.
All of these convictions are a clear example of the illegal violation of Mohammad Najafi’s right to freedom of expression and aimed at preventing his legitimate activities as a lawyer.
Article 16 of the UN Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers states that governments must ensure that lawyers “are able to perform all of their professional functions without intimidation, hindrance or improper interference.” These principles also emphasize that lawyers “should not be subject to, or threatened with, prosecution or any administrative, economic or other sanctions for any action taken in accordance with recognized professional duties, standards and ethics.” They also state that lawyers, like any other person, enjoy the right to freedom of expression and in particular, lawyers have the right to participate in public discussion of matters concerning the law, the administration of justice, and the promotion and protection of human rights (Article 23 of the UN Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers).
Under Iranian law, a prisoner with multiple convictions serves the heaviest sentence, which in Mr. Najafi’s case was a 10-year prison sentence, but with recent sentence reductions ordered by the judiciary, his current prison term has been reduced to 54 months.
We know that Mohammad Najafi is not alone, and human rights lawyers in Iran are increasingly facing government pressure. The continuous torture and harassment of independent human rights lawyers by Iran’s judiciary under fabricated charges is a central strategy of the Islamic Republic authorities to silence and suppress opponents in Iran. By imprisoning or silencing human rights lawyers, activists, opponents, and other human rights defenders are easily subjected to fabricated charges and heavy legal prosecution and punishment without any fair trial.
Mohammad Najafi is yet another human rights lawyer who has been harassed, threatened, suspended or banned from practice, arrested, and unjustly imprisoned by the authorities of the Islamic Republic of Iran in recent years. In fact, it should be noted that very few Iranian lawyers remain who are able and willing to handle and work on human rights cases.
Only some of the lawyers who have been severely harassed and persecuted in recent years for defending civil rights and freedoms in Iran include: Nasrin Sotoudeh, Abdolfattah Soltani, Nasser Zarafshan, Giti Poorfazel, Arash Keykhosravi, Mostafa Nili, Farzaneh Zilaei, Payam Derafshan, Amir Salar Davoudian, Mohammad Ali Dadkhah, Mohammad Reza Faghihi, Javad Alikardi, Mostafa Daneshju, Hadi Omid, Mohammad Seifezadeh, Ramadan Haji Mashhadi, Farhad Mohammadi, and Mohammad Hadi Erfanian Kasb.
Additionally, the application of security pressures in recent years has forced some other lawyers, including Saeed Dehqan, Mohammad Moghimi, Qasem Shelesadeh, Mazdak Etemadzadeh, and Hossein Ahmadi Niaz, to leave the country.
Courts in Iran are working hand in hand with intelligence organizations to prosecute and pursue cases against independent lawyers so that any hope for legal defense, fair trial, and fundamental civil and political freedoms in Iran is extinguished. We call on the international community to speak out powerfully and with one voice against this illegal and unjust practice, and member states should raise this issue directly and repeatedly when meeting with their Iranian counterparts, including the case of Mr. Mohammad Najafi.
Source: Human Rights Campaign in Iran
