{"id":1222,"date":"2018-01-31T15:49:07","date_gmt":"2018-01-31T15:49:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/?p=1222"},"modified":"2018-02-01T15:57:08","modified_gmt":"2018-02-01T15:57:08","slug":"iranian-american-denounces-27-year-unjust-prison-sentence-in-letter-from-prison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/?p=1222","title":{"rendered":"Iranian-American Denounces 27-Year \u201cUnjust\u201d Prison Sentence in Letter From Prison"},"content":{"rendered":"

January 31, 2018\u2013In a letter from Evin Prison obtained by the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI), Iranian-American dual national\u00a0Karan Vafadari\u00a0has denounced the \u201cunjust and tyrannical\u201d 27-year prison sentence he was issued in Tehran along with his Iranian wife, Afarin Neyssari, who was sentenced to 16 years in prison.<\/span><\/p>\n

The\u00a0charges\u00a0against Vafadari and Neyssari (who has US permanent residency) have not been officially publicized. But in a letter dated January 21, 2018, Vafadari said he was sentenced \u201clast week\u201d at a Revolutionary Court in Tehran for being a Zoroastrian\u00a0dual national.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe court has granted me the honor of being the first Iranian to be convicted under Article 989 of the\u00a0Civil Penal Code\u2026 It means my wife and me, and every one of you dual national Zoroastrians who returned to your country to invest in the homeland you love are always going to be in danger of losing your assets and being forced to leave the country,\u201d wrote Vafadari.<\/span><\/p>\n

According to\u00a0Article 989:\u00a0\u201cIn case any Iranian subject acquired foreign nationality after the solar year 1280 (1901-1902) without the observance of the provisions of law, his foreign nationality will be considered null and void and he will be regarded as an Iranian subject. Nevertheless, all his landed properties will be sold under the supervision of the local public prosecutor and the proceeds will be paid to him after the deduction of the expenses of sale.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The law also exempts these dual nationals from running for public office.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately, my international activities [in the art world] raised the suspicions of the IRGC\u2019s Intelligence Organization,\u201d added Vafadari. \u201cFortunately, the initial, baseless security accusations that led to our arrest were dropped, but our gallery, office, warehouses and home remained locked and our cars, computers and documents were confiscated, followed by accusations and interrogations that indicated a deeper plot.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Vafadari wrote that his sentence, issued at Branch 15 of the Revolutionary Court in Tehran by the notoriously hardline Judge\u00a0Abolqasem Salavati, includes 124 lashes and a fine of nine billion rials ($243,000 USD).<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBeing a dual national is no longer a source of pride but a liability that could lead to your prosecution under the obsolete Article 989,\u201d added Vafadari, who lives in Tehran with Neyssari.<\/span><\/p>\n

Iranian attorney Mahmoud Alizadeh Tabatabaee told CHRI on January 30 that Article 989 only applies to individuals who have renounced their Iranian nationality. Vafadari and Neyssari have not renounced their citizenship.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIn my 25 years of experience I have never encountered a single such case,\u201d said Tabatabaee.<\/span><\/p>\n

Property Confiscations<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Vafadari belongs to a prominent Zoroastrian family known in Tehran for their endowment to the city\u2019s\u00a0Firoozgar Hospital. Recognized in the\u00a0Constitution, followers of the ancient, pre-Islamic Zoroastrian faith have lived in Iran for thousands of years but are subject to\u00a0discrimination.<\/span><\/p>\n

In his letter, Vafadari wrote that before he was arrested, he was actively trying to regain some of his family\u2019s confiscated assets through the Iranian legal system.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDespite the chaos in the early days of the [1979] revolution, and even though my mother spent nine months in the same ward I am being kept in now, our family\u2019s love for the land of our ancestors\u2019 was so strong that they did not leave the country when more than half of our agricultural lands were confiscated in the name of khoms [Islamic tax] and more assets were taken away from us for different reasons,\u201d he wrote.<\/span><\/p>\n

In a\u00a0letter\u00a0to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei dated December 2, 2016, Karan Vafadari\u2019s sister, Kateh, noted that the couple had been arrested \u201cto fabricate a case for the purpose of extortion and property seizure.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The Islamic Republic has a documented history of\u00a0unlawfully confiscating\u00a0private property.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe should talk about this case and reveal what has happened to Vafadari,\u201d Koorosh Niknam, a former representative of the Zoroastrian community in Iran\u2019s Parliament, told CHRI on January 30, 2018. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHis assets have been confiscated. What was his crime? They say they found wine in his home and he was in contact with foreign ambassadors. That cannot be the basis of such a heavy sentence,\u201d he added.<\/span><\/p>\n

Dual Nationals in Iran<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Vafadari and Neyssari, art gallery owners in Tehran who are prominent in the Iranian artistic and cultural community, were\u00a0arrested\u00a0by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps\u2019 (IRGC) Intelligence Organization at Tehran\u2019s Imam Khomeini International airport on July 20, 2016.<\/span><\/p>\n

Two weeks later, Tehran Prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi\u00a0stated\u00a0that \u201ctwo Iranian dual nationals\u201d had been charged with organizing mixed-gender parties for foreign diplomats and their Iranian associates and serving alcohol at their home.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

According to the\u00a0Constitution, Zoroastrians in Iran are not subject to Islamic laws on alcohol and mixed gatherings.<\/span><\/p>\n

In March 2017,\u00a0new charges\u00a0were brought against the couple, including attempting to overthrow the Islamic Republic and recruiting spies through foreign embassies.<\/span><\/p>\n

In recent months, the issue of dual nationals living in Iran has become a matter of public discussion in the Iranian Parliament.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Iranian nationality of people with dual nationalities will not be nullified, rather, their foreign nationality will not be recognized,\u201d\u00a0said\u00a0Hossein Naghavi Hosseini, the spokesman for the Parliamentary Committee for National Security, on January 7.<\/span><\/p>\n

Vafadari\u2019s Warnings to Iranian Zoroastrians<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Writing about the discrimination suffered by Zoroastrians in Iran,\u00a0Vafadari pointed to the case of Zoroastrian council member\u00a0Sepanta Niknam,\u00a0who was suspended from the city council in the city of Yazd in September 2017 for his faith.<\/span><\/p>\n

Iran\u2019s Guardian Council has\u00a0declared\u00a0that religious minorities should not be allowed to run for office in Muslim-majority districts. Despite this, one of its members has stated that in some ways, religious minorities in Iran have it better than the country\u2019s Muslim-majority population.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAccording to [Guardian Council member] Ayatollah Modarresi Yazdi, the benefits granted to minorities by the Islamic state have no precedent in the world and, for their private use, they can enjoy some the things that are banned for Muslims,\u201d wrote Vafadari.<\/span><\/p>\n

Vafadari, who as a Zoroastrian is allowed to keep alcohol in his home, added: \u201cI don\u2019t recommend that you make wine at your own home. I thought this was not illegal for the Zoroastrians who have had wine in their culture for more than 5,000 years. For this, I have been given a year and a half in prison, condemned to 74 lashes and fined 140 million tomans ($38,000 USD).\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSecondly, don\u2019t accept alcoholic drinks as gifts from your friends and foreign diplomats, even if they brought them into the country from legal customs\u2019 channels, because you could also be sentenced to three years in prison and a six billion rial ($162,000 USD) fine, like I have,\u201d he added.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThirdly, with the approaching festivities such as the new year [March 21], I implore my fellow Zoroastrians to act cautiously for their own good,\u201d continued Vafadari. \u201cThe reason is that holding mixed [gender] gatherings, which are very normal for us\u2026 will be seen as promoting indecency and they will sentence you to 15 years in prison for so-called corruption and depravity like I have.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Vafadari also criticized Zoroastrian MP Esfandiar Ekhtiari for failing to prevent his prosecution.<\/span><\/p>\n

He wrote: \u201cIn the end, I should say that if you get entangled in a legal misunderstanding, or if you refuse to \u2018cooperate\u2019 with the authorities and are chosen for a \u2018hot branding,\u2019 in the words of a judicial official, aimed at discouraging others, do not have expectations from anyone, not even Mr. Ekhtiari, the honorable representative of the Zoroastrian community in Parliament.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately, he is overlooking the violations of my rights as a citizen during the judicial process under interrogation and after,\u201d he added.<\/span><\/p>\n

For interviews, contact:<\/span>
\n Hadi Ghaemi<\/span>
\n +1-917-669-5996<\/span>
\n hadighaemi@iranhumanrights.org<\/span><\/p>\n

Visit our website:\u00a0www.iranhumanrights.org<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

January 31, 2018\u2013In a letter from Evin Prison obtained by the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI), Iranian-American dual national\u00a0Karan Vafadari\u00a0has denounced the \u201cunjust and tyrannical\u201d 27-year prison sentence<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[382,309,285],"class_list":["post-1222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-human-rights","tag-afarin-neyssari","tag-chri","tag-karan-vafadari"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1222"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1222\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1223,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1222\/revisions\/1223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}