Original: English

Interviews from a selection of the meetings held by the Special Rapporteur during his December 2013 fact-finding mission in the Netherlands, Germany and France, or otherwise conducted during the reporting period for this report.

Mr. Hamid Ghassemi-Shall - former prisoner / brother of prisoner, who allegedly died in detention.

In May 2008, Mr. Alborz Ghassemi-Shall, a retired Iranian army officer, was arrested by military police in Tehran while attempting to pick up his passport, as required by Iranian law for certain retired military officials. Twelve days later, his brother Mr. Hamid Ghassemi-Shall was also arrested at a military intelligence office while attempting to pick up his own passport, which had allegedly been seized upon his brother’s arrest.

Both Alborz and Hamid were reportedly held in solitary confinement without access to a lawyer for 70 days at a military detention facility number 36 in downtown Tehran, at which point they were taken to an investigative judge. They were then allegedly returned to solitary confinement at the same facility, and only brought to trial at the Revolutionary Court’s Branch 29 on 30 December 2008, a date eventually postponed to 29 April 2009 due to a procedural requirement by the judge assigned to the case. The brothers were reportedly only able to access a lawyer shortly before the trial, and to meet with their counsel for 15 minutes prior to the trial, which lasted a total of two hours. They were sentenced to death for alleged connections to the Mujahidin e- Khalq (MEK) Organization, although they were apparently not officially notified of this judgment until December of that year.

On 13 May 2009, both brothers were transferred to solitary confinement at Evin Prison, where they remained until 29 November 2009, when they were transferred to Ward 350 (Evin’s general population ward for political prisoners).

On 19 December 2009, the brothers were reportedly transferred to the army’s Intelligence center and offered sentence-reductions in exchange for apology letters. Mr. Alborz Ghassemi-Shall apparently suffered a panic attack and was taken to a military hospital from the site where they were to write the letters. He was released on 25 December 2010, but his health continued to deteriorate to the point that he could not see or walk by the end of January 2010. By this time, Evin officials confirmed that he suffered from a tumor in his stomach, but were allegedly not permitted by intelligence officials to release him to be treated outside of the prison. Mr. Alborz Ghassemi-Shall died in Evin Prison on 19 January 2010.

In November 2011, a representative of the Prosecutor’s Office contacted Mr. Hamid Ghassemi-Shall in prison to inform him that he did not believe there was sufficient state evidence to implicate anyone in his family of the activities for which he was still serving prison time. After further intercession by an Intelligence officer and continued pressure from the official in the Prosecutor’s office, Mr. Ghassemi-Shall was re-tried and given a new five-year sentence for espionage only, despite the fact that he had apparently been cleared of that particular charge already in 2008, during the investigative phase of his case. After further pressure from family members and officials, authorities agreed to count his first year in detention as prison time toward the new five-year sentence, such that he had completed service of his sentence. He was released in September 2013 and returned to Canada, where he is a citizen and where he had lived prior to his arrest.

Mr. Hamid Ghassemi-Shall’s conviction and sentence were apparently upheld three times by the Iranian Supreme Court before he was eventually granted a re-trial.

Mr. Yashar Khameini worked for a satirical Facebook page which used religion to satirize the Iranian authorities’ reported sensitivity to criticism of religion.

In May 2012, his family contacted him and told him that authorities threatened to take his father to prison if he did not cease his participation in the page. He did stop his involvement but his family told him that authorities took his father into custody anyway.

Mr. Khamenei’s father was eventually “exonerated” of his son’s “crime” of insulting Islam, but in October 2013, he found out that his father has been sentenced to jail for one year for possession of a bottle of alcohol, a satellite television, and pepper spray, for which he had a permit. (They had seized all of these items the first time they arrested him).

In November 2013, his father was summoned and he showed up and introduced himself, but the prison authorities told him he was free to go.

His father therefore remains in a state of quasi-semi legal limbo. Though he is exonerated from the original charge, it is clear that authorities continue to maintain a case against him.

Mr Ali Khalili was a lawyer in Iran with the Bar. He taught at University, and is also an expert on international law.

In one case he took on, there were several people who were arrested trying to defend Azerbaijani rights. They were arrested without due process and put in the hands of the Ministry of Information. Mr. Khalili took this case on and clashed with the judge on the case. His role was “only to ask that the rights of these individuals -- in accordance with Iranian law -- be respected.”

He had to bring a procedural suit against the Prosecutor-General and judicial officials in Eastern Azerbaijan when he felt he was unable to do this due to his relationship with the judge on the case.

One morning in 2004, four people from the Ministry of Intelligence stormed his office and searched everything. They also seized laptops and other materials. They drove him to his house, where his wife (who had just given birth) was there with her mother. They told him to knock on the door, which he did, and he told his wife that he was there with an officer.

They said they wanted to search his apartment for “the drugs and alcohol that he uses.” He denied using anything. He demanded a warrant and mentioned that he was a lawyer and knew his rights, but they ignored him.

They searched the house, took his computer and satellite dish, and took him to the office of the Ministry of Information. No official even asked for his name for 16 days while he was in detention.

On the sixteenth day, they asked him to hand over his identification documents, but he told them that authorities had seized it in the arrest. So they put him back in a car and took him to the Prosecutor’s office. When they took him to that office, he was handcuffed on both sides of his body to two chairs, in what he believes was meant to be an embarrassing show.

He was handcuffed to a chair for 4-5 hours.

He was then taken into a courtroom and a judge arrived with a full list of documents and demanded that he sign it. Mr. Khalili said that he would not sign, because there was no warrant to arrest him, and because he didn’t know the contents of the document. The judge said: “It doesn’t matter, I will just write here that you refused to sign.”

The judge decided he would be freed on bail for 200 million rials, but did not charge him. Mr. Ali Khalili said he would pay the bond in cash. The judge said: “In that case, sit down.” It was clear to Mr. Khalili that he wanted to wait until the business day ended for banks, so that he would have to spend the night in prison.

He was taken to jail. While they asked for his fingerprints and identification, he asked the guards to tell him what he was charged with. They told him “illicit relations and forming a prostitution ring.” Mr. Khalili points out that in Iran, when a person brings charges against a judge, they often counter-charge him personally with immorality charges.

Eventually, the Prosecutor’s office accepted the bail payment. His colleagues warned him that authorities were compiling a list of charges against him and that he should leave the country. He left through the Turkish border and went to the UNHCR office in Van, where he registered. He was given an interview date by the UNHCR for a month from that time. During his time at a hotel there, he saw some suspicious people in the hotel. He wrote letters to the police in Van, and they called him back and told him they would arrange an interview in their office with him. One day after that, he was arrested by members of the Turkish police. In the car, there were also members of the Iranian Ministry of Information. He was taken back to Iran.

He was taken to Section 350 of Evin prison (controlled by the Revolutionary Guards) and was placed in solitary confinement for three months. They allegedly fed him food with hallucinogens, and he began to see things. Some of his friends, including Mr. Dadkhakh and Mr. Seif, “had the same experience” (“it’s called white torture in Iran”).

He was then transferred to the Revolutionary Guard Prison in Tabriz. When he was there he learned that he had already been charged with: “encouraging corruption and prostitution (1 year in prison), illicit prostitution (99 lashes), working as a spy, working against national security, and exchanging information with foreigners,” which altogether constituted Moharebeh (enmity against God).

He was released based on a claim that he was mentally unstable.

Thereafter he had to prove that he was undergoing treatment at a psychiatric hospital. His file was sent to a chamber in the Supreme Court. During that time he would go to see a psychologist and report to the Branch of Legal Medicine so that he would not be re-arrested.

Meanwhile, authorities confiscated all of his belongings and blocked all of his bank accounts. He had been renting out apartments, and the renters arranged with the judiciary not to pay him. He took this case to court, but it was rejected.

He began writing letters to a human rights organization from internet cafes, but authorities tracked him and reinstated the execution order against him. He fled the country.

Ashraf Qurbani

Lawyer

Ms. Qurbani is the wife of Mr. Mohamed Ali Khalili.

She notes that lawyers have a lot of difficulty working in Iran, and they “would all tell you this.” They cannot defend their clients freely. Lawyers are always treated badly in the Prosecutors’ offices. When lawyers go into Prosecutors’ offices, their phones are seized, and their items are seized “as if they were criminals.”

Moreover, there is currently a bill in Iran meant to strip the Bar Association of “whatever independence it does have.”

There is one case, in Chamber 1 of the General Court in Tabriz, regarding a young woman named Azzam Malekpour. She has been in Tabriz Prison since 2012 without charge. She is the daughter of a man who owns a textile company. A few years back, her father gave a check as a loan payment, but the amount bounced. The intended recipient charged the daughter as a way to pressure the father, since she was at the time managing his factory.

Even though it is illegal in Iran to charge an individual for someone else’s crime, she was allegedly convicted in absentia, as she was not aware of the charges and thus did not show up (“the person who is supposed to deliver the summonses in ‘bogus cases’ never showed up; they just put a stamp on the document saying the address was invalid.”).

At the time, Ms. Malekpour was living her fiance in Tehran. The Tehran prosecutor authorized authorities to arrest her from that house, from where they transferred her to Tabriz.

When they took her to prison, her family went to the Bar Association and requested a lawyer. That lawyer was not able to do much. So they came to Ms. Qurbani.

When Ms. Qurbani got into the Prosecutor’s office, the secretary there saw the file she was looking at and told her that one of the chief Prosecutors had been involved in that case, and that he would not drop it unless he personally received half the amount of the owed money.

Her fiance is now leaving her, since a woman who has been in prison “is looked down upon.”

Another case she works on: Five people in Tehran got together and decided to offer loans, independently from the Government. Another bank, run by the Revolutionary Guards, could not compete with them, so the latter tried to force them to merge, but they refused. After this meeting they sent texts to everyone they knew in town to protect themselves, since they knew the Revolutionary Guards now “had it in for them.” Two hours later, they were taken into detention. Ms. Qurbani tried to meet with them, but was told they were still under investigation. She was able to meet with families of the victims four months later, who said they had since lost 20 kgs. each. They are still in detention and their case is with Court Chamber 4.

A final case: Criminal Court, Chamber 170; about nine months ago, during the evening of mourning for Imam Ali, a young man happened to be in the street instead of at mosque. He was arrested by Basijis with weapons. Ms. Qurbani was called in and arrived at the station, but was herself threatened by Basijis. They are now accusing the victim of attacking the Basijis.

Mr. Farimani was publicly advertising his beliefs about religion, where he was a PhD student.

He was arrested for this in front of his university on September 2010 by plainclothes officers. He was “scared that they would arrest and disappear him,” so he ran inside the university building so that they would have to get “real police to arrest him.” But they pursued him, they pushed him against the wall, pulled him up from the floor, handcuffed him, and held a gun to his head.

They took him to Evin Prison, which relieved him because it’s an “official prison.” He had no lawyer, no charges were presented to him, and he was put in solitary confinement for more than 40 days (in a 2 by 1.5 meter room).

One of his interrogators asked why he did not necessarily believe in (the Government-approved version of) Islam. He tried to make the argument for it, and one of them put a rope around his neck and pulled to the side. “This was mental torture,” according to Mr. Farimani.

“When you have a physical wound, you can see a scar, but when you have a mental wound you can’t see it.”

He was sentenced to five years for blasphemy, additional time for acting against national security, and three months for each political figure he insulted. (The Revolutionary Guards had actually asked the prosecutor to seek the death penalty for blasphemy).

After 105 days, he was released on five million tuman bail, which a family member eventually had to pay for by selling his house.

“There’s no difference between keeping me in jail or forcing me to work 12 hours a day to pay off a debt; either way I can’t carry out my human rights work.”

Mr. “Jamshid”

Filmmaker

Mr. “Jamshid” left Iran in after the 2009 election crisis. Before that, he had been working with a western filmmaker. During the election, he was filming others and was beaten by forces in the street and taken to the Interior Ministry. He was quickly released.

A few days after his arrest, Mr. Jamshid received a suspicious and threatening phone call, so he looked to flee the country.

Just a few weeks ago (December 2013) a friend of his was arrested and was asked about his whereabouts. He is worried, therefore, that authorities are still interested in his case.

Mr. Bardia Taherpour left Iran three years ago.

He had been politically active in Iran for 10-12 years before leaving Iran. He began his activities one year before university, then went to Dubai after university, returned to Iran, and was arrested upon return.

Before leaving Iran, he was arrested three times for protests (related to, inter alia, workers’ rights): once for five days, once for two, and once for 15. He was always in detention centers, though, and never in prison per se. He was sometimes treated well, for what he believes were “propaganda purposes.”

When he went to Dubai, he and other friends in the West and other countries established a blog. The blog was not mostly political; it was meant to expose religious hypocrisy. In Dubai, he protested in front of the Iranian Embassy on three occasions following the events of the 2009 election. Iranian authorities were filming all of the demonstrators from the roof of the building, and, he now presumes, identifying them and looking into their backgrounds.

He returned to Iran because his father was gravely ill. (His father eventually died while he was in jail).

He was taken to the Ershad Prosecutor’s office (north Tehran). He was kept this time for 43 days before his release. He had two interrogators while in detention.

Dr. Sohrab Razaghi

Journalist

In the (Persian) year 1390 (2011-2012), 84 associations (publications) were shut down.

Many publications are closed down without any sort of process, prior notification, or trial, according to Dr. Razzaghi. His own organization was shut down in 2007 in this way, and he was arrested then.

Moreover, a number of publications that were shut down under the prior administration have approached the authorities for renewal and been denied on dubious grounds. Neshat, for example, was already cleared of charges during President Ahmadinejad’s second term, and had gone through the whole process of re-registering, but was recently prevented from re-opening through an intervention by the judiciary.

Mr. Saharkhiz is a journalist and human rights activist. He was chief of the Iranian news agency (IRNA) in New York from 1992-1997. When Mr. Khatami (a former colleague of his) was elected President, he returned to Iran and become Director-General for all internal newspapers in Iran (part of the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance). His plan was to develop journalism by giving permission to an increasing number of publications and through contacts at the international level. He helped found the Association for the Protection of Press Freedom in Iran, “a sort of Iranian equivalent of CPJ,” but more of a trade union for journalists.

When “non-reformists” were elected to the Parliament (and later to the Presidency), it became increasingly difficult to work, and he resigned around the time the judiciary began to build a case against him. He worked in the private sector and for the semi-governmental committee which approves media publications.

In 2009, this association was shut down, and many of its members were arrested, including him. A number are still in prison, and many have been forced to leave the country.

Mr. Saharkhiz was also charged with insulting the Supreme Leader. His trial was held “in violation of the Constitution, Article 168 in particular, which provides for the right to a lawyer and trial-by-jury.” In reality, he was tried behind closed doors.

When he was arrested, he was severely beaten and injured, but he survived the beating and was sent to Evin Prison section 209.

He was kept in solitary confinement initially, in a small cell (two-by-three meters) for three months. He had been fainting and lost consciousness a number of times due to kidney and other problems. At one point, another prisoner -- an Afghan drug dealer -- was put in the cell with him in order to alert guards if he would lose consciousness. He was not permitted necessary access to the toilet, and since he had prostate problems his uric acid level built up, leading to more kidney problems.

One night in January, he was forced to go to the prison roof and stand there in only a t-shirt and no shoes for two hours (it was -6 or -7 degrees Centigrade). His toes would stick to the ground when he walked, so he would run and his toes became covered in blisters. He became frostbitten, which is still an issue for him to this day. He also got a sinus infection and a cold from that experience. He became more and more ill, until finally he was transferred to a hospital. He was required to take 32 different pills for anemia, prostate problems, and blood pressure problems. The doctors feared he would have heart failure. Usually under such conditions, one is granted furlough or permitted to obtain proper medical treatment. In his case however, he was kept under guard (three guards at all times) in the hospital for 20 months.

He still suffers from blood pressure problems, and his kidneys have lost 70% of their function.

Mr. “Faraz”

Christian adherent

He has been a Christian since 2010, when he converted. Christians in Iran are face difficulty practicing their religion -- not only converts but also individuals who were born Christian. Often “individuals who visit Christian websites have a virus implanted on their computer.”

The Supreme Leader made a speech in 1389 (2010-2011) concerning House Churches, and the Revolutionary Guards from that point cracked down more harshly on them. The entire task of “dealing” with converts has been placed under the authority of the Intelligence and security structures of the Revolutionary Guards. They operate independently and outside the scope of the law, since they are only accountable to the Leader.

In his own case, in early 2013 authorities came to arrest him because of his affiliation with a Church group, (which he says was a prayer group, although he notes that authorities believe they have political activities), but they mistakenly arrested a different family member after spending three hours in the house with members of his family.

In general, Christian religious practice is monitored and heavily regulated. For example, Muslim converts to Christianity cannot enter Armenian or Assyrian Churches, as all churchgoers must register with the Government. Authorities often place cameras in churches. Christians, especially converts, are careful to use certain euphemistic language in communications.

When ministers or other visible Christian figures are arrested, they are most often pressed to reveal foreign contacts or financial connections / benefactors. According to Faraz, though, the Protestants in Iran have no political ambitions or aims to overthrow the current Government or the Islamic Republic.

He left Iran in 1996.

He was first arrested in 1979 because of trade union activities, and then was arrested again in 1980 on charges of passing out brochures for the fedayeen. It was still early after the Revolution, and the Islamic Republic “had not yet consolidated.” He was asked to pledge not to continue his activities, but he refused, and spent six months in jail.

In the winter of 1982, he was arrested a third time and spent six years in prison. He was released around the time of the mass executions of 1988. His trial lasted minutes. He mistakenly believed that things would get better after his trial; that he would go to prison and that the mistreatment would stop, but this was not the case. He notes that at the time there was a cycle in Iran; interrogators would torture confessions out of prisoners, then when prisoners would deny them in court, they would be sent back for interrogation. In a way, he says, they would not consider the case closed until a confession was obtained and confirmed.

Regarding the 1988 executions: Word had spread amongst prisoners that the MEK had crossed into Iran. A fatwa from the Supreme Leader around that time proclaimed that all affiliated would have to be punished for this, but they did not believe the order would be carried out. In fact, authorities began to make statements implying that prisoners would soon be released. However, the executions did begin. They began with repeat offender prisoners, who they seemed to believe “couldn’t be reformed.”

Some individuals were transferred to Revolutionary Guard centers, from where they never returned. Others were executed in prisons, including at Adel Abad prison in Shiraz, where Mr. Esmailpour was at the time (cell number 10, first floor).

Over the course of about six months, authorities purged the prisons of almost all MEK members. He recalls the few people who did return from such scenes reporting having been questioned about their loyalties and whether or not they were willing to die for the MEK. In prison, the administrator announced over the loudspeaker that “now, it will be the leftists’ turn.”

He was transferred along with two others leftist to a Detention Center and was kept in solitary confinement. One of the others was taken away at night, so they assumed he had been executed. Then, Mr. Esmailpour was taken away. Two guards played “good cop, bad cop.” He thought he was going to be executed, that they were preparing the ground for his execution. At one point, he asked them why they were doing this to him, and they responded, “because you are forming political groups in the prison.” He was not executed this time, however, but returned to his cell. He believes he was saved in that particular instance because of pressure that had been applied regarding his case by Amnesty International (friends who had been concerned over his case had contacted the organization).

He spent 2.5 months at this center, during which he was taken for 10 interrogations, and mostly lectured about the virtues of Islam vs. socialism. He was then returned to his cell at Adel Abad. At this point, he realized that he would likely not be killed. In all, 250 or 270 people from just his prison were executed, mostly members of the MEK, during that period. In the end, only a few non-MEK leftists were actually executed. Before he was released in the winter of 1988, he and other leftists were told that they could now “leave and get on with their lives.”

After his release, Mr. Esmailpour was required to check in regularly with the Intelligence Ministry. Authorities also continued to keep tabs on his contacts and travels (he was not permitted to leave the country).

When he later applied for a passport, he was taken into detention, but released when the Intelligence officer detaining him was contacted by a relative who worked in Government.

Mr. Esmailpour tried to live a normal life in Iran, but his record followed him everywhere he went. He had trouble securing or maintaining employment; for example, and he was worried about the educational prospects for his children.