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January 24, 2019 \u2013 Some of the conservationists who have been imprisoned incommunicado in Iran for the past year have been forced to confess under the threat of death, the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) has learned.<\/p>\nJanuary 24, 2019 \u2013 Some of the conservationists who have been imprisoned incommunicado in Iran for the past year have been forced to confess under the threat of death, the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) has learned.<\/p>\n
New details about the prolonged detentions of Houman Jowkar, Taher Ghadirian, Morad Tahbaz, Sepideh Kashani, Niloufar Bayani, Amir Hossein Khaleghi, Sam Rajabi and Abdolreza Kouhpayeh strongly indicate that Iran\u2019s judicial officials have been working closely with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps\u2019 (IRGC\u2019s) Intelligence Organization to build cases against them based on false confessions obtained under extreme duress.<\/p>\n
A source with detailed knowledge of the cases told CHRI that some of the conservationists \u201cwere subjected to months of solitary confinement and psychological torture,\u00a0threatened\u00a0with death, threatened with being injected with hallucinogenic drugs, threatened with arrest and the death of family members.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSome of the detainees were also physically beaten up\u2026 all to force them to give false confessions against themselves,\u201d added the source who requested anonymity for fear of reprisals by Iranian security forces.<\/p>\n
\u201cForced confessions won\u2019t conceal the fact that these detainees\u2019 due process rights have been trampled on while hardline judicial and security forces have been trying to manufacture cases against them,\u201d said CHRI\u2019s Executive Director Hadi Ghaemi.<\/p>\n
One Dead, Eight Others Isolated, Under \u201cImmense Pressure\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n Agents of the IRGC\u2019s Intelligence Organization arrested nine conservationists working for the Tehran-based Persian Heritage Wildlife Foundation (PHWF), which had been licensed to operate in Iran by the government, between January 24 and 25, 2018.<\/p>\n While detained in Evin Prison for interrogations, the PHWF\u2019s Managing Director Kavous Seyed-Emami, an Iranian Canadian conservationist and academic,\u00a0died<\/a>\u00a0two weeks later under\u00a0suspicious circumstances<\/a>\u00a0on February 9.<\/p>\n Officials claimed he committed suicide but a\u00a0preliminary autopsy report<\/a>\u00a0that omitted his cause of death showed \u201cbruises on different parts of the body and evidence of an injection on his skin,\u201d said a lawyer representing the Seyed-Emami family. No final autopsy report has been made public 12 months after his death.<\/p>\n Just four days after Seyed-Emami\u2019s death while his case was still making international headlines, Tehran Prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dowlatabadi\u00a0accused<\/a>\u00a0him on February 13 of engaging in espionage.<\/p>\n He and his family were also\u00a0smeared<\/a>\u00a0in a film made collaboratively by Iran\u2019s IRGC and Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting that was aired on Iran\u2019s state-run TV.While his family was in the early stages of grieving, they were threatened with harm by security agents if they spoke to the media about the case.<\/p>\n Seyed-Emami\u2019s wife, Maryam Mombeini, was repeatedly interrogated so aggressively that she was\u00a0hospitalized<\/a>\u00a0for a nervous breakdown and\u00a0banned<\/a>\u00a0from leaving the country despite\u00a0calls<\/a>\u00a0by the Canadian government for her to be allowed to travel.<\/p>\n \u201cInstead of holding anyone accountable for Seyed-Emami\u2019s death, Iran has subjected his colleagues to 12 months of abuse while violating their right to counsel,\u201d Ghaemi said.<\/p>\n The source who confirmed to CHRI that some of the PHWF staffers have been \u201csubjected to immense pressures to give false confessions against themselves and others\u201d did not indicate exactly how many were forced to make statements incriminating themselves.<\/p>\n On October 24, 2018, Dowlatabadi\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0indictments against all eight detainees had been completed and would soon be submitted for trial. He added that charges against four of the accused, whom he did not name, had changed to \u201ccorruption on earth,\u201d which could carry the death penalty.<\/p>\n It is unknown whether any of the conversations have since been tried.<\/p>\n On November 8, Gholamhossein Esmaili, the chief prosecutor of Tehran Province,\u00a0pointed to<\/a>\u00a0the \u201ccamera traps\u201d the conservationists had used to track wildlife in Iran including the endangered Asiatic Cheetah as evidence that they were spying.<\/p>\n In fact, the cameras\u2014standard professional equipment commonly used in the field\u2014are an \u201cessential tool in providing a critical basis for both science and conservation strategies to save species from extinction,\u201d said dozens of conservation practitioners and scholars including renowned primatologist\u00a0Jane Goodall<\/a>\u00a0in a November 2018\u00a0open letter<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cSome of us are ready to provide evidence and witness testimony upon request,\u201d added the signatories in the letter addressed to several Iranian officials including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, head UN envoy Gholamali Khoshroo\u00a0and Judiciary Chief Sadegh Larijani.<\/p>\n Right to Counsel Violated<\/strong><\/p>\n The conservationists\u2019 cases have been shrouded in secrecy other than occasional accusations or comments by judicial officials run in state media outlets.<\/p>\n The informed source that spoke with CHRI confirmed that the detainees have been subjected to prolonged periods of solitary confinement and only sporadically granted severely limited access to counsel or phone calls with family members.<\/p>\n \u201cThey have had no legal representation for the entire duration of their arrest until the indictments were issued in late July [2018],\u201d the source told CHRI, adding that after \u201cone year of effort,\u201d their families were finally allowed to choose lawyers for them in January 2019.<\/p>\n \u201cThey have no clue about what is happening outside, and express their immense stress of isolation\u2026 and continue to voice their innocence,\u201d added the source.<\/p>\n As in the case of Seyed-Emami who died in state custody, Iranian state-run TV has repeatedly run sensationalist news reports and comments by hardline judicial officials all aimed at smearing the detainees, who have been denied the right to respond or speak freely to defend themselves.<\/p>\n Iran\u2019s Own Intelligence Ministry Says No Evidence of Spying<\/strong><\/p>\n In May 2018, the head of Iran\u2019s Department of Environment, Vice President Isa Kalantari,\u00a0refuted<\/a>\u00a0accusations that the conservationists were spies,\u00a0pointing to the conclusions of President Hassan Rouhani\u2019s own Intelligence Ministry and \u201cfact-finding committee.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt has been determined that these individuals were detained without doing anything,\u201d Kalantari\u00a0said<\/a>. \u201cThe Intelligence Ministry has concluded that there is no evidence that these individuals were spies.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe government\u2019s fact-finding committee concluded that the detained activists should be released because there\u2019s no evidence to prove the accusations leveled against these individuals,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n International Calls For Their Release<\/strong><\/p>\n The UN has called the charges against the conservationists \u201chard to fathom.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNowhere in the world, including Iran, should conservation be equated to spying or regarded as a crime,\u201d\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0UN human rights experts in February 2018. \u201cDetention of human rights defenders for their work is arbitrary in nature.\u201d<\/p>\n CHRI calls on the Iranian judiciary to dismiss any \u201cconfessions\u201d or statements obtained under duress and adds its voice to the growing chorus of calls from inside and outside Iran for the conservationists to be granted a fair trial and released immediately.<\/p>\n \u201cIran has held these women and men in near isolation for a year while it has been cooking up cases against them,\u201d said Ghaemi.<\/p>\n \u201cYet emerging details tell a very different story of a group of conservationists being smeared and pressured to make false statements against themselves while being denied access to counsel,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n For interviews, contact:
\nHadi Ghaemi
\n+1-917-669-5996
\nhadighaemi@iranhumanrights.org<\/a><\/p>\n