HARSH SENTENCES AGAINST "BERLINIS" TO INCREASE IRAN'S ISOLATION

By Safa Haeri

PARIS-TEHRAN 14 Jan. (IPS)     An Islamic revolutionary court surprised both Iranians and the world's public opinion by announcing Saturday some of the most sever sentences ever issued against dissidents since the coming to power of President Hojjatoleslam Mohammad Khatami.

The court that was trying 20 Iranian reformists, human rights activists, intellectuals, scholars and journalists for their participation at a conference held in Berlin early April 2000  handed down six of the participants between ten to four years prison terms and acquitted six others, leaving every one baffled for the obvious discrimination.

Political analysts immediately commented the sentences as "politically motivated" and aimed at indicating conservatives determination to "intimidate and silence" reformists remaining voices before the forthcoming presidential elections due next June.

They also said that the condemnations would "very likely" deteriorates Iran's relations with Europe, its main political and economic partner and backer.

"Sentences are very harsh, unexpectedly harsh and contradictory. It's quite obvious that they are politicaly motivated. They are aimed at both reformists and other forces outside the establishment, like the religious-nationalist forces that are under tremendous attack from conservatives-controlled press and Friday preachers", commented Mr. Mahmud Omrani, a nationalist-religious journalist.

"The penalties also would greatly damage Mr. Khatami's policy of detente outside and further weakening his position prior next presidential elections", he added, speaking from Tehran with the Persian service of the Radio France Internationale (RFI).

As for Mr. Mehdi Khalaji, another religious-nationalist journalist now living in Paris, the message the conservatives wanted to pass to the people is that reform process is not "compatible with national security and forms part of their efforts to stop it at any cost".

Hours after the judgment was were known, German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer summoned Mr.Ahmad Azizi, the Iranian ambassador for "urgent talks" on Sunday, a German Foreign Ministry spokesman announced.

"Fischer is following developments in Iran with great concern and will certainly convey his deep concern about the hefty jail sentences", he added.

Mr. Azizi was summoned as the office for Chancellor Schroeder confirmed that he had postponed an official visit he was due to Iran in spring.

Considering the political situation in Iran, Chancellor Schroeder had decided he would not go to Iran", a spokesman for his office said, observing however that no firm date was decided for the trip, in response to the official visit paid to Germany by his Iranian counterpart last July.

According to informed sources, Germans had prior knowledge for the condemnations.

Observers noted that the Berlin Conference the ruling Iranian conservatives describes as "a plot" fomented by the German Greens with the assistance of the United States and international Zionist lobbies to overthrowing the Islamic regime of Iran" was actually initiated by Mr. Fischer, himself the leader of the Green Party in Mr. Gerhard Schroeder's Social-Democratic coalition government.

In its first reaction, a spokesman for the Heinrich Boel Institute expressed "deep solidarity" with the accused, saying that "More than being surprised, we are just shocked at the sentences delivered on our dear guests. Even though that this is part of the ongoing power struggle in Iran and against reform process, reformists and the person of President Khatami, yet we consider it as unacceptable".

"These condemnations would harm relations between Iran in the one hand, Germany and the European Union on the other. all I can say is that one can not seek financial and political support from the West while violating systematically people's basic democratic rights', he told the BBC's Persian service correspondent in Berlin Mr. Morteza Ra'isi.

Entitled "Iran in the aftermath of the victory of reformists in February parliamentary elections", the conference, held from7 to 9 April, was organised by Heinrich Boel Institute that had invited 17 "stars" of Iranian political scene, ranging from influential journalists like Mr. Akbar Ganji or Hamid-Reza Jala'ipour to poets and intellectuals like Mr. Mohammad Ali Sepanlou, outspoken dissident scholar professor Changuiz Pahlavan or human rights activist Mrs. Mehranguiz Kar, veteran politician Ezzatollah Sahabi, students leader Ali Afshari as well as reformist islamist Hojjatoleslam Hasan Yusefi-Eshkevari.

But from the start, the meeting was marred by noisy demonstrations from Iranian opposition groups that accused most of the participants, including Mr. Ganji and Jala'ipur of being "agents" of the notorious Intelligence Ministry of officer of the revolutionary guards responsible for the mass execution of opponents of the regime, mostly the leftists.

"Go to hell, akhund (a pejorative word for clergyman)", demonstrators would shout when Mr. Eshkevari took the podium, from where he defended the right for Muslim women to chose their dresses.

This was the basis for a special court the judges only clergymen to charge him with "moharebeh", or act of fight against God and apostasy, charges that carry death penalty.

"Get out, mercenary", was another slogan addressed to Mr. Jala'ipur or Ganji.

The second day of the conference was cancelled after an Iranian actress almost undressed while keeping a scarf to denounce the compulsory wearing by Iranian women of Islamic dress, or the "hejab" while a man danced completely nude with another woman.

Some sources said except the actress that was politically motivated, other exhibitors and noisy, uncontrolled demonstrators were hired by the regime agents.

In fact, not only the incriminated scenes were filmed by the leader-controlled Iranian television, but they were latter shown on all the nation's networks during a religious mourning period in order to stir public's anger against the participants,  accused of having "disgraced" the country in front of foreigners with the help of "counter-revolutionaries".    

This was the occasion for the lamed and much criticised fundamentalist leader Ayatollah Ali Khameneh'i, furious at the landslide victory of the reformists in the Majles (parliament elections), to order the Judiciary shut down all the independent and reformist press.                                               

The harshest sentences was slapped to internationally known investigative journalist and researcher Akbar Ganji who got a 10-year jail term plus a five-year political exile in Bashagard in southern Hormozgan province.

"Guilty" for having publicly denounced both former president Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and his notorious Intelligence Minister, Hojjatoleslam Ali Fallahian as well as some hawkish and orthodox high-ranking clerics such as Ayatollah Mohammad Taqi Mesbah-Yazdi, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati and Hojjatoelslam Mohseni Ezheh'i, all closely linked to the leader as being directly involved in the murder of more than hundred dissidents intellectuals and politicians inside and outside Iran, Mr. Ganji had himself said he would be "never pardonned", yet the sentence against him surprised, as he would be "silenced" for many years.

Actually, Mr. Ganji fell ill from the very first day and did not appeared at the conference until it's end.

Mr. Sa'id Sadr, an official translator-interpreter at the German Embassy in Tehran and Mr. Khalil Rostamkhani, also an interpreter, respectively got ten and nine years imprisonment plus exile to undetermined remote areas, even though that none of them were among the participants, having only served and worked as interpreters between the Iranians and the Germans during the initial stages preparation of the conference.

According to Mrs. Roshanak Dariush, the wife of Mr. Rostamkhani, both her husband and Mr. Sadr were paying for their past political activities as communists. "Both men had been jailed before for their political activities. I'm terribly shocked at the harsh sentences against them mostly because they were involved as interpreter", she observed, talking to the Persian service of the BBC. 

Mr. Ali Afshari, a student's leader, 75 years-old veteran politician and journalist Ezzatollah Sahabi, Mrs Mehranguiz Kar, lawyer and human rights activist and Mrs. Shahla Lahiji, an independent publisher, each were sentenced to five and four years jail.

(Mr. Afshari and Mr. Sahabi have been transferred from Evin prison to another place sice 12 days ago and until today, no one, including their families and lawyers have the slightest idea about their wherabouts).

Mrs. Kar is suffering from a breast cancer and needs urgent treatment outside Iran, but the authorities refused her permission to travel, even as she has an standing invitation from Italy, where she was named the Woman of the Year 2000 by an Italian women's organisation.

Mr. Qolamali Riahi, Mr. Ganji's lawyer told the official news agency IRNA that his client got four years for attending the Berlin conference, another four for keeping classified documents from the Culture and Islamic Guidance Ministry, 18 months insulting Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and the present leader, Ayatollah Ali Khameneh'i and six months for waging propaganda against the Islamic regime. 

Afshari's defence lawyer Abdol-Fattah Soltani told IRNA his client has been sentenced to four years in jail for attending Berlin Conference, to six months in prison on charge of establishing crisis center in the Office to Consolidating Unity, Iran's largest students organisation and six months for propaganda against the Islamic Republic of Iran.     

Six other participants at the conference, Mr. Mohammad-Ali Sepanlou, a poet, Mr. Alireza Alavitabar, Editor of the banned "Sobh" daily, Mr. Hamid-Reza Jala'ipour, prominent journalist and publisher of "Jam'eh", "Toos" and "Asre Azadegan", also shut, poet and writer Mahmoud Dowlatabadi, Mrs. Jamileh Kadivar, the wife of former outspoken Guidance Minister Ata'ollah Mohajerani and a Tehran deputy and Mrs. Monireh Ravanpour, a novelist, were acquitted.

Mr. Soltani expressed "astonishment" at the ruling that he described as "totally illegal and illogical", telling the BBC that he does understand why some of the participants were sentenced to long-term prison while others, though judged for the same charges, were acquitted.

Also Mr. Sepanlou expressed both "satisfaction and shock". "I can't understand the logics. Of course, I'm happy for myself, but very sorry for others, some of them like Mr. Sahabi my close friends", he commented.

Dr. Fariborz Ra'is-Dana, a professor of Economy at the Tehran University was sentenced to three years suspended jail while nothing has been said about Mrs. Shahla Sherkat, the Editor of the feminist monthly "Zanan" (Women).

Professor Changuiz Pahlavan, an expert on Central Asia affairs and Mr. Kazem Kordavan another intellectual are both outside Iran and not tried yet.

International human rights and other organisations were also quick to condemn the judgments. Amnesty International said it considered the sentences as the "failure of the Iranian Judicial system and reflects the Judiciary's continuing incompatibility with international norms and standard of freedom of speech and democracy".

The Paris-based Reporters Sans Frontieres (Reporters Without Borders) condemned the penalties imposed on Mr. Ganji, Sahabi, Mr. Rostamkhani and Mrs. Kar and repeated in a statement that it considers Ayatollah Khameneh'i as the world's "leading predator" against freedom of the press. ENDS BERLIN SENTENCES 14101