Twenty days after the murder of a political prisoner, a judicial official again denied the existence of a political prisoner in Iran.
While several weeks have passed since the murder of a political prisoner in Fashafoyeh Prison in Iran, a senior official in the Iranian judiciary denies the existence of any political prisoners in Iran.
On Sunday night, July 29, Gholamhossein Esmaeili, spokesman for the judiciary, said in a television program in response to the murder of a political prisoner in Fashafoyeh Prison and the reason for holding political prisoners alongside other prisoners, "We do not have political prisoners in Iran, and these are people who have committed crimes against security."
This is not the first time that the Iranian judiciary has denied the existence of political prisoners. Previously, former head of the judiciary, Sadegh Amoli Larijani, had denied the issue in February 2018, saying that “if someone has committed an act against security, they have an independent criminal title that must be addressed.”
For several years, the authorities of the Islamic Republic have been categorizing political defendants under the term “security criminals” and violating their rights. Article 168 of the Basic Law of the Islamic Republic states that political and press crimes must be tried publicly and in the presence of a jury, but for the past fourteen decades, under the pretext of not defining a political crime, defendants in political cases are still being tried in closed courts without a jury.
The denial of the existence of political prisoners in Iran by the authorities comes at a time when the Political Crimes Law was announced for implementation in June 2016, and in November 2017, it was announced that the jury of the Political Crimes Court had begun its work, but the trials of political prisoners are still being held in the Revolutionary Courts.
However, according to this law, a person is subject to a "political crime" when he does not intend to harm the principle of the system.
A definition that appears to be used by the Islamic Republic's authorities to deny the "existence of political prisoners" in Iran, under the pretext of accusing political prisoners of acting against national security.
Dissidents and prisoners of conscience are not separate from this view of Iranian government officials. Officials of the Islamic Republic have repeatedly denied that people are imprisoned for their thoughts and beliefs, including Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who told American journalist Charlie Rose, "No one is imprisoned for their beliefs in Iran."
Although there are no official statistics on the number of political and ideological prisoners in Iran, in December 2018, the US State Department announced on its Persian Twitter page that approximately 800 Iranian human rights activists were being imprisoned by the Islamic Republic.
In addition to all of this, various prisoners have complained about the lack of medical attention for their condition, the denial of access to a lawyer, or the denial of telephone calls and the possibility of meeting with their families.
In February 2018, Amnesty International, in a detailed report on the human rights situation in Iran, called 2018 the "year of shame" for the Islamic Republic.
Source: Voice of America
