INTELLIGENCE MINISTER SAY HE WAS NOT INVOLVED IN RECENT ARRESTS
By Safa Haeri
PARIS 13 Apr. (IPS) Iranian Information (Intelligence) Minister Hojjatoleslam Ali Yunesi acknowledged Thursday the existence of "several" intelligence and security organisations in the country and confirmed that the recent arrests of members of Iran Freedom Movement (IFM) and others affiliated with the Islamist-nationalist groups were made by "parallel" security organisations outside the control of his ministry.
He was referring to the Special Security Agency created six months ago in the office of the leader, Ayatollah Ali Khameneh'i, independent of the Intelligence Ministry, suspected by the ruling conservatives of "leniency" in cracking down on dissidents after the "purge" of the Ministry following the "serial murders" scandal of late 1998.
Answering questions from reformists MMs (Members of the Majles), Mr. Yunesi said not only the Intelligence Ministry was not involved in the recent arrests, but also that in his view, the IFM and the religious-nationalists were not acting against the security of the State.
Ordered by Mr. Khameneh'i and carried out by the Judiciary, the only of the three powers still under the full control of the conservatives, after the Executive and the Legislative were "captured" by the reformists in the 1997 and 2000 presidential and legislative elections, some sixty IFM and Islamist-nationalist activists were arrested in two waves in the past weeks, accused of "plotting the overthrow" of the Islamic Republic.
In a statement released after the arrest of the first group of 21 men and women during a night raid carried on the house of Mr. Mohammad Basteh-Negar, an IFM activist, the Islamic Revolution tribunal of Tehran announced the official outlawing of both the IFM and the religious-nationalists and the ban on their political activities under "any name and in any form".
In a letter to the Head of the Judiciary, the Iraqi born Ayatollah Mahmood Hashemi-Shahroodi, 150 reformist MMs expressed "astonishment" on the arrests, asked him to explain why the Intelligence Ministry was not informed; why the arrested men are held in "illegal, secret" places; why they are not allowed meeting their families, relatives and lawyers; why the deliberate ugly, inhuman and violent behaviour of the prison guards with the detainee’s families and above all, who has ordered the arrests and on which ground?
Lawmakers also warned Mr. Shahroodi that if the Judiciary continue on the same pattern, it would meet the same fate as the one the infamy the Intelligence experienced after the saga of the serial murders, when, under pressure from the press and the public opinion, it was forced to acknowledge that its agents were involved in the assassination of prominent politicians and intellectual personalities.
So far, the Judiciary has not provided any document, nor any convincing or not, reason, even in oral form, to sustain the accusations against people known for their respect of the laws and the Constitution in the one hand and their presentation of Islam as a religion that has a "human visage" and compatible with "modernity".
Arguing convincingly that mixing of politics and fate "corrupts" the politics and weakens the religion, both IFM and the religious-nationalists not only opposes the concept, but more important, they also rejects the absolute rule of the leader, a corner stone of the present Iranian system, a function held at present by the egocentric Mr. Khameneh'i, hence his hate of the widely popular nationalist-religious whom he, like his predecessor, -- rightly though – considers them as the most dangerous threat to the type of Islam and the system he represents.
Mr. Mehdi Bazargan who formed the IFM in the sixties was appointed as the Islamic Republic’s provisory Prime Minister by Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini who, at the same time, had banned the organisation.
Mr. Ahmad Sadr Haj Seyyedjavadi, 84, who served as Justice minister in Mr. Bazargan’s government, was freed on bail Thursday after being held with 41 other dissidents.
"This will not go far. The group which had the idea for these arrests and carried them out made a mistake, as the case would backfire on those who had brought it", he told the French news agency Agence France Presse AFP".
He was one of the twelve out of more than 60 detained who has been released on bail.
Mr. Haj Seyyedjavadi said conservatives who wanted to deter people from voting in next June's presidential election, which reformist President Mohammad Khatami is tipped to win if he runs again, were behind the arrests.
He said that following his arrest he had been kept alone in a bare cell with only a blanket and a jug of water. "I did not even have the right to read the Koran", Muslims holy book, he said.
"They took my spectacles and I was blindfolded when I went to the shower", he said, adding that since he had been allowed no contact with the other detainees, and had no idea who else might have been released.
"We have never done anything that might be interpreted as an attempt to overthrow the regime. We have no weapons, we never called for strikes"
On Wednesday state radio said several opposition members had been freed but gave no details on their identities or exact number, while Thursday's press put the number at five.
The only other one to be identified apart from Sadr was Tehran university professor Gholam-Abbas Tavassoli, 66, released after posting 62,500 dollars bail, according to Thursday's press quoting his wife as telling the student news agency ISNA.
Sadr's daughter Niloufar told AFP the court had demanded 200 million rials (25,000 dollars) bail for him, but later accepted an offer by the family to put up their house worth some 800 million rials as collateral.
The arrests were denounced both at home and outside, including dissident Iranian personalities and groups as well as international human rights organisations such as the Paris-based Iranian League for Human Rights and the Committee for the Defence of Political Prisoners, the Amnesty International, the New York-based Human Rights Watch or Reporters Sans Frontieres (Reporters Without Borders) that defends journalists have also condemned the arrests and called for the release of the dissidents.
Also families of 16 detainees held in solitary confinement without access to lawyers, have written a letter to the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Mrs. Mary Robinson, protesting the systematic use of psychological pressure on prisoners in order to extract "confessions" and threats to the families aimed at making them drop their protests.
Here is the full text of the letter as translated and disseminated by the US-based Co-ordination Committee for the Defence of Iranian Students
Dear Madam,
We, the families of 16 Iranian prisoners of conscience, would like to draw your attention to the gross violations of the human rights of our loved ones in Iran which include, but are in no way limited to, the following:
Confinement of political prisoners in solitary cells in detention centres that remain undisclosed, contrary to the laws of the land.
Methodical and systematic use of psychological pressure on prisoners in order to extract "confessions".
Inquisitions on the personal beliefs and private ideas of prisoners.
The office of prosecutor and judge being vested in one and the same person.
Prisoners not having access to lawyers before, during or after interrogations.
Raids on the private residences of prisoners and the confiscation of their private archives, papers and even family photographs.
Numerous threats and pressures brought on prisoners' families to remain silent and not publicly protest the unlawful acts of state security agents.
Denial of prisoner’s legal rights to have families visit them periodically and denial of access to the prisoner’s physicians in cases of illness and disease.
Prisoners of conscience Hassan Yousefi Eshkevari and Ezzatollah Sahabi were arrested last year on charges of acting against national security - their "crime" being attending a conference in Berlin on the future of reforms in Iran.
Eshkevari, a cleric suffering from severe diabetes, was charged with apostasy, and denied a lawyer of his choice, was sentenced to death in secret hearings by the Special Court for Clergy. His death sentence is under appeal.
Sahabi, arrested last (Iranian) year, is still being held in "temporary" detention by the Revolutionary Court. He remains in solitary confinement in an undisclosed location. He has been denied access to his lawyer.
Hoda Saber and Reza Alijani, editors of the now-banned "Iran-e Farda" monthly (published by Sahabi) were arrested by agents of the Revolutionary Court on January 29 and February 25 respectively. Both are in solitary confinement in an undisclosed location and both have been denied access to lawyers.
Saber has been transferred to outside hospitals on at least two occasions because of cardiac problems. Psychological pressures brought on Saber notwithstanding; his family is very concerned for his physical well-being.
On March 11, the Revolutionary Court ordered the arrest of 21 intellectuals after security agents raided the residence of Mohammad Basteh-Negar, where they were meeting. Nine were later released after being interrogated while12 others; mostly university professors, journalists and writers, remain in "temporary" solitary confinement in an undisclosed detention centre without access to lawyers or family since then.
The persons detained on March 11 are:
Mohammad Maleki (formerly chancellor of Tehran University)
Hossein Rafi’i (polymer chemist, faculty of science, Tehran University)
Reza Raiss-Tousi (political scientist, faculty of law and political
science, Tehran University)
Habibollah Peyman (dentist and formerly faculty member of Tehran
University
of Medical Sciences )
Alireza Raja’i (post-graduate student of political science)
Mohammad Basteh-Negar (writer-researcher)
Mas’oud Pedram (writer-researcher)
Mahmoud Omrani (writer-editor)
Taqi Rahmani (journalist)
Sa’id Madani (editor)
Morteza Kazemian (journalist)
Mohammad Mohammadi Ardehali (businessman)
The prosecutor/judge of branch 26 of the Revolutionary Court known only by his pseudonym "Haddad" has told family members of the political prisoners that they are allowed to leave their cells for fresh air every day - briefly and with blindfolds, and that interrogations are long and drawn out, sometimes continuing throughout the night till dawn.
The court clerks and personnel ill behaved towards the families of victims and have on various occasions used foul language and threats to intimidate women and children enquiring about the whereabouts or health of the detainees.
The above-mentioned 16 prisoners of conscience are well-known personalities in Iran. They are members of the Religious-Nationalist current, which is a loose alliance of political and social activists who believe in political pluralism and tolerance. They are committed to peaceful reform and change within the framework of the Constitution.
In statements issued by the Revolutionary Court, the detainees have been accused of plotting to overthrow Iran's ruling political system and co-operating with exiled "terrorists" -- truly absurd claims.
We appeal to you, in the name of justice and human rights, after our appeals to the judiciary chief, the parliament and the president of Iran have been of no avail. Our only demand is that the constitutional rights and human dignity of all prisoners of conscience - our loved ones and many others languishing in jails - be respected.
The families of 16 political prisoners from the Religious-Nationalist alliance;
Mohammad Maleki, Hossein Rafi’i, Reza Raiss-Tousi, Habibollah Peyman, Alireza Rajai, Mohammad Basteh-Negar, Mas’oud Pedram, Mahmoud Omrani, Taqi Rahmani, Sa’id Madani, Morteza Kazemian, Mohammad Mohammadi Ardehali, Hassan Yousefi Eshkevari, Ezzatollah Sahabi, Hoda Saber, Reza Alijani.
cc: Mr. Maurice Copithorne, special rapporteur on human rights in Iran. ENDS IFM ARRESTS 13401