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22 June, 2001
Prisoners of Conscience/Medical concern/fear of ill-treatment and psychological torture/incommunicado detention
IRAN Hojjatoleslam Hasan Yousefi Eshkevari, aged 50
Massoud Behnoud, journalist, aged 55
Dr Reza Reiss-Tousi, aged 65
Mohammad Bastehnegar
Approx 10-20 supporters of the Iran Freedom and Milli Mazhabi
(Religious Nationalist) Movements, including (new names):
Morteza Kazemian
Saeed Madani
Mohammad Maleki, aged 68
Mohammad Mohammadi Ardahali
Mahmoud Emrani
Masoud Pedram
Habibollah Peyman
Hossein Rafiee
Taqi Rahmani
Alireza Rajai
Hojjatoleslam Hasan Yousefi Eshkevari's son wrote to the Special Court for
the Clergy (SCC) on 20 June, to ask that a medical team approved by the Court examine his father, who is severely diabetic. The SCC reportedly
rejected the request the next day.
Around 10-20 supporters of the and Milli Mazhabi (Religious Nationalist) movement are still detained in "temporary" solitary confinement, more than
three months after they were arrested on charges of plotting to overthrow the government. Reportedly none of them have been told under which articles
of the Criminal Code they are detained.
Around 70 relatives of the detainees named above, and other families involved in the Milli Mazhabi movement, demonstrated outside the UN offices
in Tehran on 20 June. The group passed on a letter for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, protesting against the
continued incommunicado detention of their relatives in an unknown location; the denial of their right to legal counsel; the use of
psychological pressure to extract "confessions"; threats and pressure brought on political prisoners' families to remain silent and not publicly
protest against the unlawful acts of state security agents.
The letter reads: "How much longer are our loved ones to suffer in a state
of near total sensory deprivation in cruel and degrading conditions, without access to legal counsel and deprived of even the most basic Human
Rights?" It adds that "The secretary of the Islamic Human Rights Commission
has told us that he could do nothing as the judiciary has stopped responding to his letters."
FURTHER RECOMMENDED ACTION: Please send telegrams/telexes/faxes/express/ airmail letters in English or your own language:
- urging the authorities to release Hojjatoleslam Hasan Yousefi Eshkevari and all supporters of the Milli Mazhabi movement immediately and
unconditionally, as they are prisoners of conscience; - urging the authorities to tell the families of those arrested exactly
where they are detained, and to let them see their families and lawyers;
- asking the authorities to guarantee that Hojjatoleslam Hasan Yousefi Eshkevari and all those detained since 11 March will be treated humanely in
prison and that they will be granted the right to lawyers and medical treatment where necessary;
- asking what internationally-recognised criminal offences they are alleged
to have committed or have been charged with; - asking for details of Hasan Yousefi Eshkevari's appeal hearing, which
reportedly resulted in his death sentence being overturned.
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