Lawyer spent 10 weeks in prison 'for nothing'
Posted: 01 Sep 2009
Editor's Note: Iran Press Watch has previously reported on the detention (IPW1) and release (IPW2) of Abdolfattah Soltani, one of the lead lawyers for the imprisoned former Baha'i leaders in Tehran. Today's Los Angeles Times article provides further details that might be of considerable interest to our readers:
By Los Angeles Times
On the 28th day of his detention inside Iran's Evin Prison, he was granted his first family visit.
It was then that he found out that while he had been locked up, his sister had died in a car accident.
Prison authorities offered to let Abdul-Fatah Soltani attend the mourning ceremony.
There was just one condition.
The famed human-rights lawyer had to promise that he wouldn't speak out to the media about his incarceration.
He rejected the offer, missing the chance to join his family to grieve for his sister.
"I did not believe I had done anything wrong, so accepting their condition was against my belief and my principles," Soltani, now free, told The Times in an interview at his downtown office a few days ago. "Accepting their condition was a rubber stamp on my non-committed crime."
Instead he vowed to prison authorities that once he was out of prison, he would haul all of them into court, suing them for unjustly locking him up.
Soltani is among Iran's small cadre of human-rights lawyers and is the spokesman for the Center for the Defense of Human Rights, which was co-founded by the Nobel Peace Prize-winner Shirin Ebadi.
Read full article at Los Angeles Times
A Positive Development
Posted: 27 Aug 2009
Earlier today, Thursday, August 27, 2009, BBC Persian reported that Abdolfattah Soltani was freed from incarceration in Evin prison after enduring more than two months of imprisonment, of which 17 days was spent in solitary confinement. In an interview with BBC following his release, Mr. Soltani reported that charges against him are: “instilling doubts in elections”, “propaganda against the regime”, “formation of groups to undermine national security”. He characterized these charges as unfounded in the law and untrue.
He added that the first of these charges were conveyed to him after 27 hours of imprisonment, but Mr. Soltani insists that such a charge is completely spurious as there is no penalty under law for “instilling doubt” in elections. Furthermore, he indicated that as a human rights advocate, he had not participated in any of presidential campaigns nor represented any of the candidates.
Mr. Soltani indicated that the prosecutor had moved quickly, presumably on the strength of his wife’s open letter (see Iran Press Watch), to provide him with temporary release on a 100 million tuman [equivalent of US$100,000] bail in form of property surety.
He stated, “On June 16, four agents entered my office without having a warrant and showed me a court order dated, June 10, that is, two days before the election, which had to do with the unrest in streets and had nothing to do with me.”
“I spent the first 17 or 18 days of incarceration in solitary confinement and for two weeks was deprived of using showers, nor had any means of communications or access to newspapers or books.”
Mr. Soltani was not tortured or subjected to other inhumane treatments that commonly take places in Iranian prisons. However, he indicates that once he entered the common prison facilities, many other prisoners reported that they had been tortured or beaten or otherwise physically mistreated.
In denying any wrongdoing and referring to charges against him as baseless, Mr. Soltani noted that four years ago, he was imprisoned for seven months but was released when all charges against him were proven to be unfounded.
[Based on BBC Persian. Translation by Iran Press Watch.]
From Iran Press Watch
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