PARIS 3 Mar (IPS) As the Iranian authorities have returned to their old practices with political prisoners after the departure of the United Nations human rights delegation, an international committee for the defence of Qasem sho´leh Sa´di and other Iranian jailed lawyers and intellectuals is under constitution, informed sources revealed Monday.

Mr. Sho’leh Sa’di, a former Member of the Iranian Parliament and a prominent lawyer was detained last Monday at Tehran’s Mehrabad international airport as he walked out from the plane, coming back from a month-long stay in Paris, where he underwent medical check up and also made speeches on the current critical situation in Iran.

At first, he was held briefly in an undisclosed place, but then transferred to the notorious Evin prison on hilltops near the Capital and his wife said the authorities behaviour had been “quite decent and respectful”.

This was when the UN delegation was still in Iran, visiting prisons and talking to political prisoners.

But according to one of his sons, Javad, ever since the departure of the delegation, which was led by Mr. Louis Joinet, a French Jurist, the authorities have refused the family to meet with his father and his whereabouts are not known, fearing that he could be transferred to one of the numerous but undisclosed prisons.

An outspoken critic of the present regime and particularly its leader, Ayatollah Ali Khameneh’i, Mr. Sho’leh Sa’di, who is also a professor at Tehran and Shiraz universities, has written several open letters, questioning the legitimacy of Mr. Khameneh’i’ leadership.

“We are forming an international committee for the defence of not only Mr. Sho’leh Sa’di, of whom I’m a defence, but also other lawyers and dissidents of the regime”, said Mr. Noori Albala, a French lawyer, well known by the present authorities as he had, under the former regime, took the defence of many opponents to the deposed Shah Mohammad Reza, among them some of the clerics who are now in power.

Besides Mr. Sho’leh Sa’di, there are at least three other prominent Iranian lawyers behind bars, namely Mr. Naser Zarafshan, Mr. Daadkhah and Soltani, all defence for victims of the famous “Chain Murders” case, in which high-ranking officials at the Intelligence Ministry assassinated in cold blood at least five politicians and intellectuals in November 1998.

The committee would include French, Italian, German, Belgian and Swiss lawyers and jurists, Mr. Albala further told Iran Press Service, adding that the aim would be also the defence of free expression and democracy in Iran.

The Iran Student’s Committee for the Defence of Political Prisoner said Monday that some of jailed students, like Mr. Manoochehr Mohammadi, the leader of Nationalist Iranian Students Organisation had been subject to flogging, while other, like Mr. Heshmatollah Tabarzadi had been transferred to individual cells in the Evin prison. ENDS SH’LEH SA’DI 3303