News

English translation

Source: //missionfreeiran.org/

Mohammad Mostafai, judicial lawyer whose wife and brother-in-law (Fereshteh Halimi and Farhad Halimi) have been under arrest since the beginning of last week, has written a letter to Tehran prosecutor.

Fereshteh and Farhad Halimi, wife and brother-in-law of Mohammad Mostafai, lawyer and children rights advocate, have been under arrest since the beginning of last week and have not contacted their family since. According to RAHANA, the arrest of Mohammad Mostafai’s family took place after he was summoned to Evin prison last Saturday night and was questioned about his activities regarding adolescents condemned to death. The next day they summoned him again by phone and arrested his wife and her brother before he had a chance to appear at Evin prison. These arrests have been designed to put pressure on Mohammad Mostafai and have prompted him to write a letter to the Tehran prosecutor:

In the Name of God

Mr. Jafari Dolat Abadi, General and Revolutionary Prosecutor of Tehran,

Greetings.

Since Saturday, the interrogator for the 2nd branch of Shahid Moghadas has unjustly captured my kind, innocent and tormented wife along with her brother. This is against the principle of ‘crimes and punishments have to be personal.’ Taking my two loved ones hostage is an abuse of his powers and based on his personal whim.

Mr. Jafari Dolat-Abadi,

On Wednesday a legal summons came to my office that asked me to appear at the 2nd branch of the interrogators office for a few explanations. On that day I went to Evin prison at 9 am. A soldier named Mohammad-Khani took me inside. I waited for a long time and then I was called for interrogations. The interrogator read out a few pages of the complaints against me and asked questions regarding the help I was giving to adolescents condemned to execution. Although I was not prepared for those questions, I responded to him with whatever came to my mind and cleared all his questions. After a few hours, without any charges laid out against me, he called Soldier Mohammad-Khani and ordered my release. The solider helped me pass through many security obstacles at Evin prison and using someone’s phone outside the prison I called my wife and told her not to worry and that everything has been resolved. After that, since I did not have my mobile phone with me, I was not able to call my wife again. (The interrogator of the 2nd branch has announced that he has my phone and that I have escaped prison!). This is an absolute falsification. I never ran away. I have my mobile phone with me. You can review the tapes of closed circuit televisions at the prison.

At 5 p.m. I went to my office and my secretary told me that my wife had called. I called her and she said that the 2nd branch of the interrogators office had called her summoning me again. Since it was after hours, I decided to go there the next day. The special agent at the interrogators office had asked one of my colleagues to not reveal anything about the summon and he had obliged. My colleague told me that a few plain clothes agents wanted to see me. I went outside a few times and I did not see any agents. I then attended a meeting and time passed.

At 11 p.m. I called my wife but there was not answer. I got worried and called her father. He told me that they had come to his office to pick up my wife’s car. The car that my wife uses belongs to her father. Her father uses it all day to attend to some land for expert analysis. But since I had not taken my car, I let my father-in-law use it. (The expert at his work is willing to testify to this. He is a witness that my wife is completely innocent because he has witnessed that my wife was with her father all along). I called again a few minutes later and her father told me that his children have been arrested and transferred to Evin prison.

Mr. Jafari Dolat Abadi,

After hearing this news I was very upset and wanted to go to Evin prison but I could not stand so much lawlessness and violations of basic human rights. Despite the arrest of the person I love most in my life, I decided not to ever set foot in a judicial office where the interrogators do not abide by any basic laws: These include “crimes and punishments have to be personal,” formal charges, charges have to have legal basis: “hostage taking is never legal,” just prosecutions, principle of being neutral, and hundreds of other principles which are violated. I decided not to appear unless the against for the interrogator’s office try hard enough to come and arrest me in my silo that I have built for myself.

Mr. Jafari Dolat Abadi,

You know full well that issuing arrest warrants require certain preconditions. My case is excluded from those conditions because my occupation, place of living and my work are all public. Also in all cases of prosecution, first the accused is summoned and if he or she does not appear then arrest warrants are issued. Arrest warrants are never issued without summons. This was the case when I was first summoned and I did appear at Evin prison. If needed, the interrogator could have issued another summons for more questioning, or he could have summoned me by phone and I would have appeared again. Have you done any research to find out under what law my arrest warrant has been issued? I am sure that the interrogator who works for you has not even bothered to read the judicial laws even once. This is why my wife and her brother have been illegally taken hostage. That’s unless we believe that there are people who consider themselves above the law and do whatever they wish.

Mr. Jafari Dolat Abadi,

The interrogator who works for you or other agents who share your power has not only acted against the law but they have not even employed any moral conscience at all. They have taken a beautiful six-year-old girl away from her parents and have stranded her. Through the illegal and immoral action taken by security agents, my Parmida has lost both parents. I do not believe any Moslem can take a child away from her mother in this way, and then they announce that until Mohammad Mostafai shows up, we won’t release the two. Mr. Prosecutor, what part of our judicial code does this belong to? and more importantly, I ask the interrogators who have a hand in my wife and her brother’s arrest: if you are a Moslem please tell me where in the holy Sharia laws does it say that an innocent mother whose only concern in life has been the raising of her children can be taken away so cruelly. I swear to God that this is not part of Islam.
Farhad Halimi, the brother of my wife, had recently wedded and was trying to start a new life. He had studied hard for one year in order to participate in Thursday’s national university exams. But this illegal arrest wasted his whole year’s efforts, causing him to miss the exam.

Mr. Prosecutor,

For the past few years all my thoughts have been towards saving people who did not deserve to die. I was so occupied with saving these people that I hardly got to see my dear wife and daughter. On this path I have been able to save 18 adolescents who were condemned to death, sometimes by raising funds for their bail. This is a service to my country. I have also saved many older people. Many many times I asked the former head of judiciary for pardons on cases of stoning and my requests have been accepted. My bigger goal was to convince the judicial judges not to step beyond the boundaries of the law. I am willing to show you hundreds of judicial cases where the deputy district attorney, interrogators and the judge have abused their powers issuing unjust sentences, just like my case. And for someone who has always worked towards justice and the interests of the Islamic Republic, is this the way I am paid back for my God loving and human loving actions?

Mr. Dolat Abadi,

I am asking you, the highest ranking official at the Tehran prosecutor’s office, to guide the interrogator to stop these actions and release my wife and brother from captivity and hostage-taking. You should know that once the court and the prosecutor’s office puts forward a just case for my trial I will appear in court, even though I am completely innocent, and I will accept and endure any verdict.
At the end I need to remind you that in the past year I have been summoned by phone by information ministry agents and I have answered their questions. If were to be summoned again, I would have undoubtedly appeared again. But now that these actions have taken place, I am forced to endure the separation from my dear wife and child and my respectable family in an effort to establish rule of law in our country.

I leave you and your interrogator at the mercy of God, the creator. I hope that you won’t let my child cry for her mother, not eating food and wanting her mother back. She needs to hug her mother. If through this separation from her mother she gets hurt, it’s a sin that you have committed. If you believe in the judgment day, free the two people who have not committed any sins. It’s unjust and against the our judicial laws to arrest them.

Mohammad Mostafai,
husband of Fereshteh Halimi

TAKE ACTION TO SUPPORT
MOHAMMAD MOSTAFAEI AND HIS FAMILY:
- Use our Open Letter to Geoffrey Robertson QC as a sample
letter to ask Robertson for support for his colleague, Mostafaei.
- Contact
Foreign Ministries/State Dept for Mostafaei and his Family –
letter-writing samples and addresses included
- Request
Bar Associations and Law Schools to Advocate for Mostafaei –
letter-writing samples and addresses included
- Sign the
petition in support of Mohammad Mostafaei and his family