The condemnation of eight environmentalists, with a total of 58 years in prison sentences, has been upheld by a Revolutionary Court in Iran.
Judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili confirmed on Tuesday that the appeals court upheld punishments from 6 to 10 years in prison against seven of the political prisoners for “cooperating with the hostile state of the US” and obtaining “illicit income”. A four-year sentence for Abdolreza Kouhpayeh was sustained for “assembly and collusion to act against national security”.
The court again failed to produce any evidence to support the allegations against the members of the Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation. They were seized in January and February 2018 as they carried environmental studies.
A ninth detainee, the Foundation’s head Prof. Kavous Sayed-Emami, died in suspicious circumstances in Tehran’s Evin Prison days after the initial arrests.
Niloufar Bayani and Morad Tahbaz, an Iranian-American-Canadian national, were given 10-year terms and ordered them to return “illicit income”, calculated from Bayani’s salary from the UN Environment Program, where she worked prior to joining the wildlife group, by her six years of working there, a source told Human Rights Watch.
Houman Jokar and Taher Ghadirian were condemned to 8 years on the charge of “cooperating with the hostile states of the US and Israel through spying against the Islamic Republic and in favor of the foreign intelligence services of the CIA and Mossad”. Amir Hossein Khaleghian, Sepideh Kashani, and Sam Rajabi were handed 6 years for “participating in spying against the Islamic Republic”, “participating in cooperation with the hostile state of the US”, and “cooperating with the hostile state of the US”.
Issa Kalantari, the head of Iran’s Environmental Institution, said in May 2018 that a Ministerial committee concluded there was no evidence of espionage by the environmentalists.
Tehran Prosecutor General Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi warned in October 2018 that four of the defendants could be given the death penalty for “sowing corruption on earth”. He declared, without support, that the researchers were “seeking proximity to military sites with the cover of the environmental projects and obtaining military information from them”.
Bayani said during a trial session in February 2019 that the defendants had been under psychological torture, coerced into making false confessions. She also wrote that she was threatened with injection of a substance in her arm and threatened with “photos of torture devices”.
The detainees were not allowed to choose legal representation. Instead, they had to choose from a judiciary-supplied list that had no human rights lawyers.
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“Another 1,000 or so members – already convicted and serving prison sentences – were retried and executed for collusion with the MEK leadership. The MEK is believed to have killed up to 12,000 Iranians since 1981 and another 3,000 Iraqis. They are not innocent or democratic,”
I lived through that time and saw no evidence of all you are claiming here. Even your masters don’t know how to explain their crimes, but you seem to have it all figured out. But then again, non of this is about truth or justice, this is all about your continued looting of treasures.
Yanking people(AGAIN mostly teenagers) out of their jail and putting them in front of the wall does NOT constitute “trial”.
According to the U.S State Department: “Since 1981 the MKO themselves have claimed responsibility for murdering thousands of Iranians they describe as agents of the regime.” http://iran.org/news/1994_10-State-Dept-MEK-report.htm
The MEK/MKO also murdered thousands of Iraqi Kurds and Shias after the Gulf War: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/nov/09/mek-iran-revolution-regime-trump-rajavi
“They came in Saddam’s tanks. We thought they were returning peshmerga because the tanks were covered with portraits of Kurdish leaders … but they opened fire on the town … It was a big atrocity.”
Reza, there is nothing in this world worst than people thinking of you as an idiot. And, you are an idiot. Go interact with the rest of your clan.
In Dec 2018, Amnesty International’s Iran research team published a report on the alleged mass executions of MEK/PMOI cult members in Iran in 1988. The report deliberately omitted the fact that most of them were killed on the battlefield as part of an invasion from Iraq with the support of Saddam Hussein. Amnesty tried to portray the MEK as a largely peaceful and democratic opposition group persecuted, “because of peaceful political or religious activities such as distributing newspapers and leaflets, taking part in demonstrations, collecting funds for prisoners’ families, or in some cases just because they were associated with people actively opposed to the system.” https://www.amnesty.org/download/Documents/MDE1394212018ENGLISH.PDF
Amnesty visited the MEK prison camp near Tirana, Albania, to gather evidence from MEK members: “Amnesty International also undertook three field trips to Tirana, Albania, where a substantial number of survivors and family members are based. These trips took place in October and November 2017 and March 2018.”
Despite allegations of gross human rights abuses at the camp, Amnesty effectively ignored this to the outrage and consternation of the relatives of camp inmates who are trying to free their loved ones from Maryam Rajavi’s indoctrination and torture: https://www.nejatngo.org/en/posts/9143
“…he report deliberately omitted the fact that most of them were killed on the battlefield as part of an invasion from Iraq with the support of Saddam Hussein….”
NO!!! While I do not endorse MEK, “the mass killings” refers to the people(mostly teenagers) who were in prison and already serve their sentences of 2-3yrs for bogus charges. Take your BS and stash it where sun doesn’t shine. Many of those people were my classmates. Know what BS you talk about before you open your mouth.
Amnesty’s report did* not* mention the fact that:
1. 2,000-3,000 MEK members were killed on the battlefield during Operation Ambush.
2. 1,000 who were captured during the operation were court-martialed and executed as traitors.
Another 1,000 or so members – already convicted and serving prison sentences – were retried and executed for collusion with the MEK leadership. The MEK is believed to have killed up to 12,000 Iranians since 1981 and another 3,000 Iraqis. They are not innocent or democratic,
Apparently Kushajan, or maybe Ayatollah Kushajan has very close links to Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS). Nejat “NGO” is the name of a division in MOIS, dedicated to demonizing the MEK, and anyone that quotes the notorious Nejat or MOIS, that has its hands in the blood of over 120,000 dissidents (Mainly MEK supporters) including young children, pregnant women, and elderlies.
The Human Rights Watch report, was at the rebuked, as a report that was published in breach of all humanitarian principals, and based on reports from 12 interviews that HRW did by phone! to agents of MOIS. The report was rebuked at the time by a very detail report written by the honorable Lord Avebury that investigated the dubious report and exposed the people behind that report, which at the time was considered part of the efforts to appease the dictatorship ruling Iran.
You have intentionally forgotten to mention that an EU delegation (consist of 5 renowned MEPs and a lawyer) visited Camp Ashraf Iraq to investigate the HRW’s report and they published a book afterward that completely denounced the fake report assembled by the HRW.
A copy can be found here: https://english.mojahedin.org/linksen/257
Other rubbish in your comment about Amnesty’s efforts really needs no response, as it goes without saying that they know their job a lot better than an MOIS agent does.
The “illicit income” is because the group was funded by a member of UANI (United against Nuclear Iran): https://theintercept.com/2019/11/27/iran-environmentalists-panthera-thomas-kaplan/
““It’s about someone who is actively funding efforts to affect that country’s politics, while supporting local environmentalists who had no knowledge of his politics.”
The conservationists did not have permission to place high resolution cameras in an area where the military were conducting covert missile tests. A source within Iran revealed that the researchers did, in fact, stumble across a restricted site: https://www.jpost.com/Magazine/Irans-war-on-science-580567
“They accidentally found out about secret bases that held lots of missiles. That was why they got arrested.”