Iranian human rights lawyer and activist Abdolfattah Soltani has been sentenced to 13 years in jail by a Tehran Revolutionary Court.
Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) reports that Soltani’s 13 year sentence was confirmed at the branch 54 of the Revolutionary Court and will have to be served in exile.
Maede Soltani, who resides in Germany, told AP that the sentence was “politically motivated” and that her father was told that his sentence would be reduced “if he were to apologize and speak out against Ms. Ebadi [Iranian Nobel Peace laureate Shirin Ebadi] in an open letter or an interview.”
Abdolfattah Soltani, like Ebadi, is one of the co-founders of the Defenders of Human Rights Centre (DHRC) in Iran, an NGO providing pro bono legal services in human rights cases. The centre is currently outlawed in Iran, and its members are all targets of continuous persecution.
Soltani will be exiled to the remote city of Borazjan to serve out his sentence, making it hard for his family to visit him.
Soltani;s charges included “propanada against the regime, founding the Defenders of Human Rights Centre, and assembly and collusion against national security.” He is also charged with “collecting pelf” for receiving the Nuremberg Human Rights award in 2009.
Soltani’s arrest and sentencing have been condemned by Amnesty International, which has called for his immediate release.
Source : Radio Zamaneh
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Iranian human rights lawyer jailed for 13 years
A prominent Iranian human rights lawyer has been sentenced to 13 years in prison by a Tehran revolutionary court, his daughter has said.
Abdolfattah Soltani was originally given 18 years but appealed and has now been told more years will be taken off if he denounces the Iranian Nobel peace laureate Shirin Ebadi.
Maede Soltani, who lives in Germany, said her family was officially notified on Monday of last week’s appeal ruling.
Abdolfattah Soltani co-founded the Centre for Human Rights Defenders with Ebadi. He was arrested last year.
A court in March initially sentenced the 58-year-old to 18 years in prison on various charges, including co-founding the centre, spreading anti-government propaganda and endangering national security.
“My father was told that his sentence would be reduced [further] if he would apologise and speak out against Ms Ebadi in an open letter or an interview,” Maede Soltani said. “He declined.”
Amnesty International maintains Soltani is a “non-violent political prisoner who is being jailed only for his legitimate activities” as a human rights lawyer.
“Abdolfattah Soltani is one of the bravest human rights defenders in Iran,” Amnesty said after his detention last September, urging his immediate release.
Maede Soltani said on Tuesday that last week’s “politically motivated” ruling could not be appealed against a second time.
Soltani was previously arrested for seven months in 2005 and again for several months in the wake of Iran’s disputed presidential elections in 2009. The revolutionary court also upheld the decision to transfer Soltani to a remote prison in the city of Borazjan, about 620 miles (1,000km) south-west of Tehran, Maede Soltani said, adding that the family would barely be able to visit him there.
Working alongside Ebadi, the lawyer also represented the family of the photojournalist Zahra Kazemi, a Canadian of Iranian origin who was arrested for taking photographs in front of Evin prison and died several days later in the prison, possibly after being tortured.
An investigative panel concluded that Kazemi died of a fractured skull and brain haemorrhage caused by a “physical attack” but the findings were rejected by Iran’s conservative judiciary.
Source : Guardian