Iran: Mohammad Mostafaei’s Letter to World Leaders

In the wake of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s trip to New York City this week to attend the UN General Assembly, human rights lawyer Mohammad Mostafaei (left) writes a powerful letter to world leaders to provide them with a general overview of the human rights violations and abuses committed by the Islamic Republic of Iran since its inception.

In the Name of God

Your Excellencies,

With Salutations and Greetings,

Peace, international and national security, social, economic, judicial and political stability and the privileges of a peaceful life, and, even more importantly, equality, avoidance of violence, tyranny, oppression and other unjust discriminations can only reach a desirable conclusion worthy of proper human dignity when all of the world leaders show determination and take steps in preserving human rights and human dignity and convince countries that abuse human rights to safeguard the inherent human dignity and grace.

As Mr. Ahmadinejad’s trip to New York and his speech at the United Nations approaches, it is expected that, like past instances, he denounces other states as human rights abusers and presents his own state as the ‘axis of justice’.

It is therefore necessary and imperative for me to bring your attention to just some of the current human rights [abuses] within the Islamic Republic:

The Islamic Republic, in the last three decades of its rule, has not been committed to the basic principles of human rights and international law, including the United Nations charter, international agreements on civil, political, economical and social rights, and the Convention on the Rights of a Child. It has also disregarded the very human rights laws and principles that has been passed by its legislative body, the Islamic Consultative Assembly, which has forced a non-clement interpretation of Islam to exploit and abuse the rights of millions of Iranians.

You are well versed that the basis of liberty and peace in the world is the acknowledgment of the equal rights of all of human beings which stems from the very inherent dignity of every person.

Ever since the inception of the Islamic Republic, however, its rulers have implemented their own personal preferences in the name of adherence to Islam, without consideration for justice, impartiality, conscience, and morality. Thousands of people belonging to the political opposition have been arbitrarily massacred during the eighties and the nineties after the Islamic revolution and their families were made to mourn these victims.

Ayatollah Montazeri, the designated successor to Ayatollah Khomeini at the time, confirmed these massacres in a taped interview. There are many indisputable documents that corroborate these massacres. Khavaran cemetery is the mass grave of many of those executed during these massacres.

In the Islamic Republic, capital punishment is used and recognized by the establishment as a means to hold on to political power. Many of those sentenced to execution have simply been victims of these political decisions and were executed purely for political reasons.

Many of the execution sentences that have been passed by the judiciary have disregarded the very laws that were passed by the country’s legislative body in favour of the accused. Also, the execution sentences are issued in a completely arbitrarily manner.

The Islamic Republic is a country that has sentenced minors under the age of 18 years to execution and carried out the sentences. Every year the judiciary takes away the lives of many of these minors; children who lack sufficient understanding and resolve and have not reached the intellectual growth of an adult, children who have been denied their right to a lawyer and, on many occasions, have been made to confess unwillingly under emotional and mental pressures to their alleged crime.

In this regard, I represented forty minors and managed to save eighteen of them from death row, but the Islamic Republic executed four of my clients.

Stoning, blinding of the eye, amputation of limbs and tongue and other body parts are some of the penal punishments implemented by the Islamic Republic. [These forms of punishment] are a direct opposition to human dignity.

In the last three decades, security forces have dominated the judiciary system and caused hundreds of thousands of Iranians to leave their country for other parts of the world. They have been forced to leave Iran for reasons of fear of arbitrary arrests, torture, death and other punishments such as the lack of social and economic security as a result of violent and unlawful behaviour by the judiciary system. Many people have become refugees and lost their families. They have no hope of returning to their homeland. Their emotional state deteriorates on a daily basis. They are forced unwillingly into exile as a result of a few powerful ruling elite like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. These people need urgent international protection.

The Islamic Republic officially sanctions the discriminatory laws against women in its penal code and has adopted laws under the name of Islam for men that do not conform to the basic human rights principles, thus [the laws] are often regarded as crimes.

Such lawful dominance of men over women encourages a version of slavery. Women, as a symbol of affection, sentiment, and self sacrifice do not enjoy equal rights. For example, the blood money for a woman is half that of a man. Women are entitled to much less inheritance and even lose out in some instances their entire inheritance.

Women in return for sexual relations with men and working from home are entitled to receive expenses, and if they refuse the man’s sexual demands, they are denied these expenses. Women do not have the right to divorce their husbands; this is entirely a man’s right. After a breakdown in marriage, women can only have the custody and care of the children until seven years of age.

Women’s witness statements on their own are not submittable for a court hearing. In the Islamic Republic of Iran, anti-establishment voices are suppressed in the worst possible ways. Religious minorities are also restricted. Many of them like the Baha’is do not have the right to an education or employment and are denied equal social rights. If they make any objections they are issued long imprisonment sentences and their families are threatened and harmed.

The Islamic Republic does not spend its huge income from the oil and mining industry, communications, and state television on the welfare of its citizens. [Rather, the Islamic Republic spends its money on] strengthening its military and, in particular, its nuclear energy. The incomes gained from these different sources are injected into the hands of the security forces, the IRGC, the Basij, and other defense and armed forces. In an effort to strengthen its military forces the government is attempting to implement its power on the national and international stage by creating fear and terror. This is at a time when Iran is in a state of mismanagement and the government is increasingly becoming disconnected from children, women without guardians, low income earners, employees, and rural families who either have no income or receive minimum wage to make ends meet.

The question is, how can a state that does not pay attention to the basic rights of its own citizens claim to be the champion of bringing peace and justice to the world?

How can a state that abuses its power by harming, torturing, and imprisoning social rights workers, journalists, students, political activists, labor activists, women and children, and is not afraid to use violent punishments like stoning, arbitrary political and non-political executions and the amputation of limbs, talk about bringing peace and justice to the world?

What has been mentioned is just a drop in the ocean of the tyranny and oppression that the Islamic Republic inflicts on its citizens. The Iranian people need support now more than ever. They need boycotts against the human rights abusers, not against the very people who are victims of an incompetent and violent state.

Hence, as a lawyer who has witnessed with my own eyes the tyranny and repression against the people of Iran and who has represented hundreds of victims of human rights abuses and has full knowledge of the laws and penal codes of the Islamic Republic, I ask you not to allow the Islamic Republic statesmen, in the name of Islam, trample the rights of Iran’s citizens.

Mohammad Mostafaei,

Iranian Lawyer and Human Rights Activist

Original text in Persian here.

Source: Persian2English, September 21, 2010