IRAN MUST FREE POLITICAL PRISONERS, WARNS HEINRISH BOEL INSTITUTE
From Parviz Mardani
BERLIN 19 July (IPS) The Head of the German Cultural Institute Heinrich Boel Warned the Islamic Republic that if it wants full normalisation with Germany, it must therefore respect human rights and free political prisoners, particularly those who participated at the Berlin Conference of April 2000.
Presenting Wednesday the "Iran After Elections", or "The Berlin Conference Documents" book, the Mr. Ralf Fucks, the Chairman of the Institute said regardless of present level of trade exchange, but relations between Iran and Germany could not develop further until participants at the Berlin Conference are in jail in Iran.The Institute that was at the core of the "bundle" closure of Iranian independent and pro-reform press and the imprisonment of a dozen of the best of Iranian journalists and other prominent dissident personalities.
Seventeen leading Iranians of all walk, including several pro-reform journalists, a human rights lawyer activist, a female independent publisher, intellectuals, an outspoken reformist cleric and dissident scholars were invited by the Heinrich Boel Institute, sponsored by the German Government to debate the aftermath of the Iranian Legislative elections that was won overwhelmingly by reformists close to President Mohammad Khatami.
But because of short sight from the organisers and ill preparation, the conference, attended by almost a thousands Iranians, some of them coming from as far as the United States, was marred by protests and demonstrations from Iranian foreign-based dissident groups not invited.
Angered at their defeat at the elections and looking for ways to proclaim a state of emergency, the conservatives also protested to the meeting, insisting that it was organised by the Zionists and sponsored by the Americans in an attempt to topple the Islamic Republic and as a consequence, shut down all but few pro-reform publications, more than 50 in all and ordered the arrest of all those who participated at the conference.
Mr. Kazem Kordavani, an intellectual and scholar who was one of the participant rejected as "totally baseless and unfounded" the authorities claims that the Berlin meeting was against the Islamic regime of Iran, saying that instead, it became another occasion at the hands of the oppressive wing of the Iranian clerical leadership to better suppress freedoms in Iran.
"They (conservatives) claim the conference was a plot against the regime, but the question they do not answer is that how seventeen or twenty people can work a plot in three days, in an open forum attended by hundreds of people", Mr Kordavani observed, speaking to the Persian service of the Prague-based "Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty".
In his view, there is "definitely a political will" behind the sentences and accused the leader-controlled Judiciary of "revengeful attitude" concerning some of the participants, notably Hojjatoleslam Hasan Yusefi-Eshkevari, a respected reformist islamist and Mr. Ezzatollah Sahhabi, a veteran journsliast and politician, Mr. Ali Afshari, a students leader and Mr. Akbar Ganji, the investigative journalist, all of them arrested on their return from Berlin.
Mr. Yusefi-Eshkevari was accused by the controversial Clergymen’s Special Tribunal apostasy and fighting God, charges that carry death penalty in Islam-ruled Iran.
Mr. Sahhabi, a member of the banned Iran Freedom Movement and close to also outlawed Islamist-nationalist groups, owner and Editor of "Iran Farda" bi-weekly was condemned to four years and is kept in solitary confinement in an unknown prison, where his health and psychological conditions reported by his family as "very poor".
Mr. Afshari, believed to be in the same prison as Mr. Sahhabi , was given four and half year. He was one of the first students suggesting limiting the leader’s mandate and powers and subjecting him to answerability to the people.
He was shown recently on the state-run Television, confessing to his "mistakes" and apologising to the "beloved supreme leader".
As for Mr. Ganji, who was slapped a full six years prison by a higher Appeals Court reversing the decision of another court that had slashed an original ten years jail to six months only, is "guilty" of being one of the first journalists who revealed the participation of high-ranking security agents of the Information Ministry in the murder of more than hundred prominent politicians and intellectuals, most of them secularist.
"The oppressors poured all their anger over those who had fought dictatorship all their lives", Mr. Kordovani added, speaking at the presentation ceremonies.
He sharply denounced the behaviour of the Iranian Judicial authorities with political prisoners, saying the aim of such an inhuman attitude is the "destruction of the prisoner’s personality".
Describing the horrible situation in some Iranian prisons managed by various institutions, like the infamous Prison number 59 that is believed to be under the control of Ayatollah Ali Khamenehe'i, the leader of the regime, Mr. Kordavani said it take only few weeks of detention in these places for the prisoner to metamorphose, lose completely his former personality.
"It is in such a way that a veteran political fighter like Mr.Sahhabi who has been in prison most of his life and seen different tortures behave like children, pleading not to be interrogated again", he pointed out.
Though summoned by an Islamic revolution court, Mr. Kordavani decided to stay out and is currently living in the German city of Weimar.
Mrs. Roshanak Dariush, an interpreter and wife of Mr. Khalil Rostamkhani was another speaker of the Heinrich Boel conference of Wednesday.
Her husband, though not invited and not present at the Berlin meeting, was nevertheless arrested and condemned to ten years imprisonment and her self summoned by the court, just because as professional translators, they were hired by the Institute to serve as interpreters both for translating conference documents and facilitating contacts between the Institutes representatives and the Iranians.
Except a few ones, all other participants at the conference were sentenced to various prison terms, ranging from four to ten years internment, with the situation of some others, like Mrs. Mehrangiz Kar, a human rights activist lawyer and Mrs. Shahla Lahiji, an independent publisher, or Sa’id Sadr, the official translator of the German Embassy in Iran, still pending.
The "Iran After Elections" is a three parts compilation of all the speeches made by participants at the conference and questions and answers with the public, in the second part comes the reactions in Iran and abroad to the conference, including the suspension of newspapers, arrest of the guests, articles written in the press, positions taken by personalities like Ayatollah Khamenehe'i and President Khatami and the charges and verdicts pronounced by Iranian courts against participants. ENDS IRAN BERLIN BOOK 19701