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(9 September 2010) Abdollah Momeni, a prominent Iranian activist jailed since June 2009, has described being severely tortured, forced to make false confessions, and subjected to a “show trial” in a letter to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Momeni is serving a four years and eleven months prison sentence in Ward 350 of Tehran’s notorious Evin prison.
The letter is being published for the first time by the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran. Momeni wrote the letter to Khamenei after learning of Khamenei’s remarks at a prayer sermon saying, “Whatever accused persons say about themselves in court is credible.”
“Momeni’s letter is addressed to the Supreme Leader, and if Ayatollah Khamenei does not respond by launching a credible and independent investigation aimed at holding violators accountable, then there is ample evidence that these systematic and inhumane methods for extracting false confessions are sanctioned by him,” said Hadi Ghaemi, the Campaign’s spokesperson.
The letter provides significant documentation as a testimony about the treatment of one detained and prosecuted in a post-election trial. Momeni describes severe beatings and suffocations by interrogators until he became unconscious; his head being held in a toilet bowl; solitary confinement for 86 days in a 1.6×2.2 meter (4.8×6.6 ft) cell; repeatedly being threatened with imminent execution; being forced by his interrogators to practice fal... >>>