Payam Dorfeshan and Farrokh Forouzan were detained on Friday 31 of August in the house of Arash Keykhosravi, a lawyer who is already in prison. Hoda Amid another human rights lawyer and women’s rights activist was detained on Saturday, August 1, in her own house.
The reasons for the detention of these lawyers have not yet been made public. The Islamic Republic of Iran has made its enmity clear towards the independence of lawyers, the right to have a defense and the right to a fair trial, on numerous occasions and in variety of ways. Following the victory of the Revolution of 1979, the barring and the delays in holding election for the Central Board of Bar Association and transferring the administrative work of the Bar to an individual for 18 years, the arrest and imprisonment of human rights lawyers in different stages, the enactment of a law for the approval of lawyers’ work permit and conditioning the acceptance of the candidacy of lawyers volunteering to be appointed to the Central Board of Bar Association to the ruling of a high military court and introducing bills to take away the minimum independence of the lawyers , is a sign of the depth of this enmity against the right to have a defense and the right to a fair trial.
In its latest move, the Islamic Consultative Assembly (parliament) by enacting Article 48 of the Islamic Penal Code, taking away the right to choose one’s trusted lawyer for those accused of crimes such as security matters, offences which carry the death penalty, retribution (qisas), qisas of a limb, and life imprisonment was another serious blow to the already wounded body of the rights to have a defense and the right to have a fair trial.
Since the establishment of the Islamic Republic, the Iranian Judiciary has not fulfilled its mission to implement the law, upholding the rights and safeguarding justice but has acted as an institution of fear and repression of the freedom of the people and the defenders of human rights.
Intimidation, threats, and arrest of human rights lawyers who are constantly concerned about the execution of the laws in accordance with the principle of a fair trial and justice, has become a 40-year-old tradition for the Islamic Republic. A tradition that has emptied the principle of a fair trial and justice from their meanings in a way that following the 2009 controversial presidential election, around 60 lawyers were persecuted and some are still serving their time in prisons such as Nasrin Sotoudeh and Abdolfattah Soltani. Some others served their terms and were freed such as Mohammad Saifzadeh and Mohammad Oliyaeifard. Yet others were forced to leave Iran such as Mahnaz Parakand and Shirin Ebadi.
This inhuman treatment of human rights lawyers and the defenders of human rights occurs when Iran is committed to international human rights principles such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights as well as the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. In human rights settings, Iran denies that there are political prisoners and breaches of human rights in the country.
The Free Tribune of Lawyers condemns these threats, intimidation, illegal arrests and unfair sentences against the human rights lawyers, and demands that all the lawyers be freed without any conditions from detention and legal and illegal prisons of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The Free Tribune of Lawyers calls on international lawyers associations across the world to follow up on the conditions of the detained lawyers.
