Source: The International Society for Iranian Studies
(ISIS)
December 3, 2007
To:
Ayatollah Sayyid 'Ali Khamenei,
Supreme Leader
of the Islamic Republic of Iran
cc.: Dr.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President
of the Islamic Republic of Iran
Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi,
Head of the Iranian Judiciary
Mr.
Mohammad
Hassan
Zia'ifar,
Secretary of the Islamic Human Rights
Commission
We
are writing to express our grave concern regarding the arrest of Mr. Emadeddin
Baghi on October 14, 2007, and his continued detention. Mr. Baghi is best known
internationally as a prominent Iranian journalist, author, and intellectual, and
as a leading human rights defender inside Iran as well as the founder (in 2003)
of the
Association for Defending the
Rights of Prisoners in Iran--the
pioneering organization of its kind in Iran, which defends the basic
rights and human dignity of all prisoners and advocates the abolition of torture
and the death penalty. Among other awards recognizing his immense contribution
to defending human rights and promoting freedom of expression, Mr. Baghi is the
recipient of the Northcote Parkinson Fund's Civil
Courage Award (2004) and the prestigious French National
Consultative Commission on Human Rights Award
(2005). Prior to his recent arrest, Mr. Baghi already had served a jail
sentence from 2000 to 2003 for his journalistic activities and was subsequently
subjected to regular intimidation and harassment by the authorities, ranging
from the confiscation of his passport to "legal" proceedings against him and his
family members.
Mr. Baghi consistently has
spoken out against violent social change while promoting freedom of expression
and greater democratic rights. In his
unflagging endorsement of freedom of expression in Iran, Baghi steadfastly has
condemned outside overt or covert state intervention in Iranian affairs.
This includes his public rebuke of the US State Department's allocation of funds
for "pro-democracy" groups and human rights NGOs inside Iran. Baghi regards the
allocation of such funds as nothing more than Washington's subterfuge for
promoting its own self-serving agenda which, in the process, falsely and
undeservedly taints all human rights defenders and advocates of greater freedom
of expression inside Iran as somehow beholden to and collaborating with US
policy.
According to the available information, Mr. Baghi has been
arrested by Iranian authorities to serve a suspended one-year sentence he
received in 2004 for his journalistic activities as well as a new three-year
sentence on additional charges of "propaganda against the state" and the "public
disclosure of state secrets" (stemming from his activities in support of
prisoners' rights and his journalism). He is being held in solitary confinement
in Evin prison--in
the notorious detention facilities at the prison run by the intelligence
ministry--and
is denied basic prisoners' rights, such as regular visitation rights, regular
access to his lawyer, and reading and writing material, other than a small copy
of the Quran he is allowed to keep.
Mr.
Baghi's arrest has been condemned by leading non-partisan, independent human
rights groups and organizations promoting freedom of expression, such as Amnesty
International, Human Rights Watch, International PEN, Reporters Without Borders,
and the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH). As the leading
international, non-partisan, academic organization devoted to Iran and
Iran-related studies, the International Society for
Iranian Studies Committee for Academic and Intellectual Freedom joins these
other international organizations in condemning the arrest and
detention of Mr. Baghi and calls on Iranian authorities to grant his immediate
and unconditional release. We also ask the Iranian authorities to guarantee Mr.
Baghi's full access to his legal representative, his well-treatment, as well as
visitation rights and regular phone calls to his relatives and friends while he
remains in detention.
We also are extremely concerned
by the intensifying trend in the harassment and detention of many other
academics, researchers, and intellectuals in Iran over the past two years on
arbitrary, trumped-up charges against them. These arrests and persecutory
policies--ranging
from the detention of numerous non-violent student activists to the
dismissal of university faculty and other educators from their teaching posts on
"ideological" grounds, denying formal educational opportunities to members of
the Baha'i community, persecution of human rights defenders and journalists, the
discretionary closure of many newspapers, the recent arrests of women's
rights activists, or the current trial behind-closed-doors of the French-Iranian
student and filmmaker Mehrnoush Solouki--appear
to be part of an organized, large-scale attempt by the authorities to further
curtail freedom of thought and expression in Iran.
As an academic organization committed to the promotion of freedoms of
research, thought, and expression, we consider these alarming developments as a
well-orchestrated official assault on the basic rights of individuals to freedom
of thought and expression, which are guaranteed under the Constitution of the
Islamic Republic of Iran (Article 23) and protected by the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (Articles 18, 19, and 21), to which the
Islamic Republic of Iran is a signatory.
Your Excellency, we very much
hope you will take appropriate measures to bring about the immediate and
unconditional release of Mr. Baghi and other non-violent jailed journalists,
academics, students, and human rights advocates and that you will guarantee the
basic rights of freedom of thought, research, and expression in the Islamic
Republic of Iran.
The International Society for Iranian Studies
Committee for Academic & Intellectual Freedom
http://www.humanities.uci.edu/iranian-studies/caif/
The International Society for Iranian Studies
(ISIS), formerly the Society for Iranian Studies, was founded in 1967 as an
academic society to support and promote the field of Iranian Studies at the
international level. The ISIS, an affiliated member of the international Middle
East Studies Association (MESA), is a private, not-for-profit, non-political
organization of persons interested in Iranian Studies in the broadest sense. The
Society is run by an elected council and executive council. The objectives of
the Society are to promote high standards of scholarship in the field, to
encourage the teaching of Iranian Studies at the graduate and under-graduate
levels, to encourage and facilitate scholarly exchange amongst its international
membership.
The International Society for Iranian Studies publishes the
journal Iranian Studies that continues to serve as the principal journal in the
field, as well as a newsletter for the membership: ISISNews.
As an independent, non-partisan, non-political, multi-disciplinary international
community of over 500 scholars, students, academic and non-academic researchers,
and aficionados of Iranian studies, the ISIS is committed to promoting free
exchange of ideas, freedom of expression in all forms and all media, and
unrestricted pursuit of (academic and non-academic) research, instruction,
publication, and presentation (in Iran and internationally) without fear of
intimidation and persecution. The ISIS considers any restriction on peaceful
acquisition and dissemination of knowledge in any form as violation of basic
rights of individuals and detrimental to promoting greater understanding and
awareness of Iranian society, cultures, and history. The organization maintains
that comprehensive academic and wide-ranging intellectual freedom (including
artistic and journalistic freedom) cannot exist without broader respect for
freedom of expression as well as basic guarantees and provisions of the right to
assembly, travel, individual safety and security, and human rights--irrespective
of gender and sexual orientation, class, national/ethnic/racial identity,
political ideology, and/or religious/non-religious views of individuals.
In its non-partisan advocacy of academic and
intellectual freedom and promotion of Iranian Studies, the ISIS urges
international, national, and local governmental and non-governmental authorities
to fully respect and protect the basic rights of individuals engaged in
Iran-related research and intellectual production in its broadest definition, in
keeping with the organization's promotion of knowledge and exchange of ideas;
providing full legal guarantees and assiduously safeguarding freedom of
expression as well as pursuit of academic and non-academic research,
instruction, publication, and presentation. In pursuance of these objectives,
the ISIS Committee for Academic & Intellectual Freedom (ISIS-CAIF) shall
monitor, document, internationally publicize, and bring to the attention of
concerned authorities any infringement or neglect of Iranian- and Iran-related
academic and intellectual freedom (in the broadest sense), and demand immediate
end to such violations.
ISIS-CAIF
ISIS_CAIF@yahoo.com
http://www.humanities.uci.edu/iranian-studies/caif/
... Payvand News - 12/04/07 ... --
