{"id":1290,"date":"2018-08-14T16:54:01","date_gmt":"2018-08-14T16:54:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/?p=1290"},"modified":"2018-08-15T17:08:15","modified_gmt":"2018-08-15T17:08:15","slug":"judiciarys-intensifying-crackdown-on-defense-attorneys-in-iran-must-end","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/?p=1290","title":{"rendered":"Judiciary\u2019s Intensifying Crackdown on Defense Attorneys in Iran Must End"},"content":{"rendered":"

Association Notes Iran\u2019s \u201cUnacceptable Intrusion on the Independence of the Legal Profession Which Undermines the Rule of Law\u201d<\/p><\/div>\n

August 14, 2018\u2014An intensifying state crackdown on human rights defenders in Iran, in which the authorities have denied attorneys the ability to represent their clients and jailed them for attempting to do so, violates Iran\u2019s domestic laws and international obligations and must end, the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) said in a statement today.<\/p>\n

Iranian authorities have charged at least three human rights lawyers and blocked at least four others from retaining clients over the last eight months.<\/p>\n

\u201cIran is imprisoning lawyers for doing their job and depriving its citizens of one of the most basic human rights\u2014the right to counsel of choice,\u201d said CHRI\u2019s executive director, Hadi Ghaemi.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the Iranian judiciary won\u2019t abide by the law then it is the responsibility of the Rouhani administration and Iran\u2019s parliament to address these violations of due process,\u201d said Ghaemi, \u201cand Iran\u2019s Bar Association should take the lead in defending its own members.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to arresting defense attorneys, Iran\u2019s judiciary has issued a list of 20 state-approved lawyers that detainees accused of \u201cnational security crimes\u201d\u2014the type of charge that\u2019s usually issued against activists and dissidents\u2014must choose from for legal representation.<\/p>\n

The consequences of this assault on the legal profession in Iran are dire for attorneys and their clients: lawyers are sent to prison for defending their clients, and those whom they would represent are held for extended periods without charge, often forced to make false statements during interrogations, tried in brief trials where evidentiary standards do not meet international standards, and sent to prison by hardline judges handpicked to rule on \u201cnational security\u201d cases for terms that can exceed 10 years.<\/p>\n

7 Human Rights Lawyers Detained, Charged and Summoned<\/strong><\/p>\n

Nasrin Sotoudeh\u00a0<\/strong>has been\u00a0detained\u00a0in Tehran\u2019s Evin Prison since June 13, 2018, and is facing two\u00a0national security charges\u00a0for\u00a0serving as the lawyer\u00a0of a woman who was charged for removing her headscarf in public. Before her arrest, Sotoudeh had also strongly criticized the judiciary\u2019s list of state-approved lawyers.<\/p>\n

Mohammad Najafi<\/strong>\u00a0has been in and out of detention since being\u00a0arrested\u00a0on January 15, 2018. He is facing eight national security charges for\u00a0telling media outlets that local authorities concealed the true cause of\u00a0Vahid Heydari\u2019s\u00a0death in police custody during Iran\u2019s\u00a0December 2017\/January 2018\u00a0protests.<\/p>\n

Iran\u2019s judiciary has also\u00a0blocked\u00a0Najafi from retaining\u00a0Payam Derafshan\u00a0and\u00a0Arash Keykhosravi\u00a0as his lawyers; Najafi was told to pick a lawyer from a list of seven approved by the judiciary.<\/p>\n

Mostafa Tork Hamadani<\/strong>\u00a0was summoned to court and\u00a0charged\u00a0in July 2018 after criticizing the judiciary for barring him from defending\u00a0environmentalists\u00a0who were arrested by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Hamadani, who has taken on several human rights cases throughout his career,\u00a0tweeted\u00a0a copy of his summons document\u00a0on July 26, adding:<\/p>\n

\u201cI was summoned to the Culture and Media Court based on a complaint by Tehran\u2019s deputy prosecutor who accused me of spreading falsehoods. The reasons given in the complaint are my tweets about the late [Kavous] Seyed-Emami and the Note to Article 48 regarding the prohibition on lawyers against representing detained environmentalists\u2026All my efforts are aimed at improving the climate for lawyers to defend the accused.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hossein Ahmadiniaz<\/strong>, the defense attorney in several cases involving basic rights in Iran, was\u00a0summonedby Branch 4 of the Revolutionary Court in Sanandaj, the capital of Kurdistan Province on July 10, 2018, after he signed an\u00a0open letter\u00a0with 154 other lawyers criticizing Judiciary Chief Sadegh Larijani for\u00a0restricting counsel\u00a0for detainees held under national security-related charges.<\/p>\n

According to defense attorney\u00a0Payam Derafshan<\/strong>, he and his colleague\u00a0Arash Keykhosravi<\/strong>\u00a0were\u00a0about to be arrested\u00a0in February 2018 by the Intelligence Ministry\u2019s office in Shazand, near Arak in Markazi Province, for giving legal counsel to fellow lawyer Mohammadi Najafi, \u201cbut the [Intelligence] Ministry in Tehran told us they had blocked it.\u201d<\/p>\n

In March 2018, defense attorney\u00a0Mohammad Moghimi<\/strong>\u00a0said\u00a0he had been banned from retaining clients because he wasn\u2019t on the judiciary\u2019s \u201capproved\u201d list:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe family of one of the people arrested in the\u00a0recent protests\u00a0contacted me and when I went to the judiciary to follow up on the case, I was told that I cannot represent this case because I have to be on a list,\u201d he added. \u201cI demanded to see this list but they didn\u2019t have one. I said I have a license to practice law and that means I have the right to take this case. But they said based on Article 48, I\u2019m not qualified.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat they want is someone who listens to them and won\u2019t stand in their way. That\u2019s a betrayal of the law. It will make lawyers more cautious and cause them to fear doing many things that could leave them off certain lists,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe UN and the international community should forcefully register their condemnation of these blatant violations of law and of Iran\u2019s international obligations,\u201d said Ghaemi.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights\u00a0(ICCPR), which Iran is a signatory to, recognizes in Article 14, subsection (3)(d), the right of an accused in criminal proceedings to be represented by legal counsel of his or her choice.<\/p>\n

Iran\u2019s Judiciary Uses \u201cNote to Article 48\u201d to Stamp Out Due Process<\/strong><\/p>\n

In January 2018, judicial offices in several Iranian cities received\u00a0lists\u00a0of lawyers that have been allowed by the judicial branch to take on cases involving national security charges at the preliminary investigation stage.<\/p>\n

Iran\u2019s\u00a0Constitution\u00a0sets no limits or conditions on the right to legal counsel.<\/p>\n

Article 35 states, \u201cBoth parties to a lawsuit have the right in all courts of law to select an attorney\u2026.\u201d According to Article 48 of\u00a0Iran\u2019s Criminal Procedures Regulations, people have the right to ask for and have a meeting with a lawyer as soon as they are detained.<\/p>\n

However, the\u00a0Note to Article 48\u00a0makes exceptions: \u201cIn cases of crimes against internal or external security\u2026during the investigation phase, the parties to the dispute are to select their attorneys from a list approved by the head of the judiciary.\u201d<\/p>\n

This note also permits judicial authorities to\u00a0delay\u00a0an individual\u2019s access to a lawyer by up to a week in cases involving alleged \u201ccrimes against the country\u2019s domestic and foreign security.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet CHRI has documented a consistent pattern over many years in which interrogations without counsel in these so-called national security cases actually goes on for many weeks. During this time individuals are routinely subjected to intense and unlawful threats and pressure to make false \u201cconfessions.\u201d<\/p>\n

The former UN Special Rapporteur for human rights in Iran\u00a0noted\u00a0in her March 2018 report her \u201cregret\u201d that despite the Bar Association\u2019s call for a reconsideration of the restrictions on access to counsel in Iran, no changes had been made.<\/p>\n

The judiciary\u2019s official list has not been released to the public, but opposition sites have\u00a0reported\u00a0that the state-approved lawyers include those known for advocating harsh sentences, including the death penalty, for detainees held on political charges.<\/p>\n

Many human rights lawyers have publicly\u00a0criticized\u00a0the list. In January 2018,\u00a0155 lawyers\u00a0called\u00a0on Iran\u2019s Judiciary Chief Sadegh Larijani to stop restricting detainees\u2019 access to legal counsel.<\/p>\n

In March 2018, before the human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh was arrested and imprisoned, she\u00a0said:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe object to the judiciary chief\u2019s indefensible behavior in introducing what amounts to discriminatory rules against the right to a fair defense, and if our objections do not result in reforms, we will take further action\u2026.If the head of the judiciary can stop lawyers from practicing, it\u2019s time to say goodbye to this profession.\u201d<\/p>\n

In July 2018, the International Bar Association\u2019s Human Rights Institute\u00a0called on\u00a0Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to \u201ctake all possible measures to ensure that lawyers are allowed to carry out their legitimate professional activities without fear of intimidation, harassment or interference, in accordance with international human rights standards.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

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

August 14, 2018\u2014An intensifying state crackdown on human rights defenders in Iran, in which the authorities have denied attorneys the ability to represent their clients and jailed them for attempting<\/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":[404,406,407,402,405,167,403],"class_list":["post-1290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-human-rights","tag-arash-keykhosravi","tag-hossein-ahmadiniaz","tag-mohammad-moghimi","tag-mohammad-najafi","tag-mostafa-tork-hamadani","tag-nasrin-sotoudeh","tag-payam-derafshan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1290","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=1290"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1290\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1291,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1290\/revisions\/1291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}