{"id":1298,"date":"2018-09-06T14:05:18","date_gmt":"2018-09-06T14:05:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/?p=1298"},"modified":"2018-09-06T14:05:18","modified_gmt":"2018-09-06T14:05:18","slug":"irans-assault-on-legal-profession-intensifies-with-three-more-attorneys-arrested","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/?p=1298","title":{"rendered":"Iran\u2019s Assault on Legal Profession Intensifies with Three More Attorneys Arrested"},"content":{"rendered":"

Seven Lawyers Now Behind Bars with More Summoned or Banned from Work<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

September 5, 2018\u2014The arrest of three more lawyers in Iran, Payam Derafshan, Farrokh Forouzan and Hoda Amid, represents the continuing escalation of Iran\u2019s assault against its own legal profession and a flagrant violation of these individuals\u2019 basic rights to freedom of expression and due process, the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) said in a statement today.<\/p>\n

Payam Derafshan, Farrokh Forouzan and Hoda Amid, as well as all of the other imprisoned human rights attorneys in Iran, which include\u00a0Abdolfattah Soltani,\u00a0Nasrin Sotoudeh,\u00a0Arash Keykhosravi\u00a0and Ghasem Sholeh Sa\u2019di, should be released immediately, CHRI said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe authorities in Iran arrested these lawyers for the same reason all the other human right defenders are imprisoned\u2014to prevent the effective defense of political prisoners and civil liberties in Iran,\u201d said Hadi Ghaemi, CHRI executive director.<\/p>\n

On August 31, agents of Iran\u2019s intelligence ministry, which reports directly to President Rouhani, arrested Derafshan and Forouzan, continuing a crackdown that has accelerated since February 2018, in which other prominent human rights attorneys have been arrested, summoned to court or blocked from taking on clients.<\/p>\n

Dearshan and Fououzan were taken into custody as they arrived at the home of detained fellow attorney Arash Keykhosravi, in the city of Karaj, west of Tehran. The two prominent lawyers had gone to Keykhosravi\u2019s home with the intention of meeting with his family, a source told the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI).<\/p>\n

\u201cThe intelligence agents were waiting outside the house and as soon as [the two men] got out of the car they detained them,\u201d added the source, who asked to remain anonymous for security reasons. \u201cIt\u2019s still not clear what the charges are or where they\u2019re being held.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Hoda Amin was arrested on September 1 in Tehran by Iran\u2019s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp (IRGC) Intelligence Organization, days before she was scheduled to host a workshop aimed at raising awareness of women\u2019s marriage and divorce rights.<\/p>\n

Forouzan specializes in defending the rights of children while Derafshan and Keykhosravi have both been involved in a number of politically sensitive cases, including the suspicious death of Iranian-Canadian environmentalist\u00a0Kavous Seyed-Emami\u00a0in February 2018.<\/p>\n

Derafshan represented Keykhosravi after his\u00a0arrest, along with former lawmaker Ghasem Sholeh Sa\u2019di, during a rally in front of Iran\u2019s parliament building on August 18, 2018 to protest the signing of an accord between Iran and other\u00a0Caspian Sea nations, which divides the body of water and its oil and gas resources. Derafshan has also been critical of the judiciary\u2019s list of\u00a0approved lawyers, from which defendants charged with national security-related crimes must choose.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe prosecutor upped the charge (against Keykhosravi) from \u2018disruption of public order\u2019 to \u2018assembly and collusion against national security\u2019 even though it\u2019s unrelated to what they did, which was attend a peaceful public gathering that didn\u2019t harm national security the slightest bit,\u201d attorney Derafshan\u00a0told CHRI\u00a0on August 21.<\/p>\n

In response to the latest arrest of their colleagues, a group of nearly 100 Iranian lawyers signed a letter to Judiciary Chief Sadegh Larijani asking why they had been charged with national security offenses for doing their job and called for their immediate release.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf a few people have views that are in opposition to a certain law or certain state decisions, are they really acting against national security? Isn\u2019t national security being undermined instead by arbitrary and baseless interpretations of the law? \u2026 Won\u2019t national security be better served and protected by guaranteeing the rights of individuals to freely express their thoughts and views in a peaceful manner, even if they are against official state views?\u201d said the August 30th letter, a copy of which was obtained by CHRI.<\/p>\n

The letter continues that \u201csweeping interpretations of national security\u201d violate several articles in Iran\u2019s\u00a0Constitution, particularly Articles 9 and 37.<\/p>\n

Article 9 states: \u201cNo individual, group, or authority, has the right to infringe in the slightest way upon the political, cultural, economic, and military independence or the territorial integrity of Iran under the pretext of exercising freedom. Similarly, no authority has the right to abrogate legitimate freedoms, not even by enacting laws and regulations for that purpose, under the pretext of preserving the independence and territorial integrity of the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

Article 37 states: \u201cInnocence is to be presumed, and no one is to be held guilty of a charge unless his or her guilt has been established by a competent court.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe lawyers in Iran who are bravely attempting to do their job\u2014and landing in prison for it\u2014should have the full support of the international community,\u201d said Ghaemi. \u201cGovernments worldwide should forcefully express their condemnation of these arrests directly to their Iranian counterparts.\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

\n

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September 5, 2018\u2014The arrest of three more lawyers in Iran, Payam Derafshan, Farrokh Forouzan and Hoda Amid, represents the continuing escalation of Iran\u2019s assault against its own legal profession and<\/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":[146,404,410,412,411,167,403],"class_list":["post-1298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-human-rights","tag-abdolfattah-soltani","tag-arash-keykhosravi","tag-farrokh-forouzan","tag-ghasem-sholeh-sadi","tag-hoda-amid","tag-nasrin-sotoudeh","tag-payam-derafshan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1298","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=1298"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1298\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1299,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1298\/revisions\/1299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}