{"id":1439,"date":"2019-02-11T15:58:08","date_gmt":"2019-02-11T15:58:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/?p=1439"},"modified":"2019-02-13T16:12:03","modified_gmt":"2019-02-13T16:12:03","slug":"iranian-agents-tried-to-frame-detained-conservationists-by-staging-scenes-to-falsely-implicate-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/?p=1439","title":{"rendered":"Iranian Agents Tried to Frame Detained Conservationists by Staging Scenes to Falsely Implicate Them"},"content":{"rendered":"

Three Major State Agencies Rejected Charges of Espionage, Indictment Based on Retracted False \u201cConfessions\u201d<\/p><\/div>\n

February 11, 2019 \u2013 Amid eight conservationists\u2019\u00a0closed-door trial\u00a0in Iran\u2019s revolutionary court system, the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) has been informed that agents staged scenes around at least two of the detainees with the intent of implicating them in a false narrative.<\/p>\n

In one instance, plainclothes agents transported conservation scientist\u00a0Niloufar Bayani\u00a0out of Evin Prison in Tehran to several locations in an affluent town for a day and directed her to engage in specific acts while filming her without her consent.<\/p>\n

In another instance, plainclothes agents including a film crew forcefully entered the home of now-deceased academic\u00a0Kavous Seyed-Emami\u00a0(one of the original nine conservationists arrested who\u00a0died while in detentionin Evin Prison in February 2018 under highly suspicious circumstances) and pressured his grieving widow to make false statements on camera while denying her access to a lawyer.<\/p>\n

While she was being interrogated, several other agents transported boxes into her basement and blocked off access to it for several hours before leaving without explanation.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the past year, Iran\u2019s security apparatus has been colluding with judicial officials to cook up cases against these conservationists who\u2019ve been denied the right to defend themselves,\u201d said CHRI\u2019s Executive Director Hadi Ghaemi.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot only are they being tried based on false \u2018confessions,\u2019 now we\u2019ve also learned that agents staged scenes around them to support a false narrative,\u201d Ghaemi added.<\/p>\n

Staging Scenes of \u201cGuilt\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

A source with detailed knowledge of the conservationists\u2019 cases told CHRI that in September 2018, Bayani \u201cwas unexpectedly taken from Evin Prison by a convoy of plainclothes officers in four cars to a number of locations in Tehran and its vicinity.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was first taken to a beauty salon in the center of Tehran and offered a haircut; then to a luxury shopping mall in [the town of] Lavasan and encouraged to go on a shopping spree,\u201d said the source who requested anonymity for security reasons. \u201cShe refused to leave the car in both instances.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was then taken to a luxury villa in Lavasan and offered to step out of the car and take advantage of the fresh air and the amenities in the garden, which she also refused,\u201d added the source.<\/p>\n

The source continued: \u201cUpon needing to use the bathroom after several hours, she noticed that one of the plainclothes officers was filming her every move from behind a tree. She immediately retreated to the car. The convoy then stopped at a restaurant on the way back to Tehran and the officers had lunch, which she again refused.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s unclear who ordered and allowed this unlawful tour and jeopardized the safety of an arrested young conservation scientist,\u201d added the source.<\/p>\n

After Bayani told her parents about the incident when they visited her in Evin Prison in November, prison authorities warned her not to speak about it again. \u201cAfterwards she did not get a visit for a while,\u201d said the source.<\/p>\n

Planting \u201cEvidence\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ramin Seyed-Emami, the son of Iranian Canadian sociologist Kavous Seyed-Emami, told CHRI that agents raided his home in Tehran \u201cnumerous times\u201d after his father\u2019s death. One instance involved dozens of agents, boxes with unknown contents transported into his basement without his mother\u2019s consent, and a camera crew.<\/p>\n

Shortly after Seyed-Emami\u2019s death, which officials claim was a suicide despite a\u00a0preliminary autopsy report\u00a0that omitted his cause of death and the presence of unexplained injection sites on his corpse, agents raided the home, confiscating \u201cseveral boxes of personal belongings.\u201d<\/p>\n

Months later on June 25, 2018, while millions of Iranians were focused on a World Cup match, dozens of plainclothes agents returned to the home, which was only occupied by his widow Maryam Mombeini, forced their way past the doorman and proceeded to pressure her to make false statements on camera while denying her access to a lawyer.<\/p>\n

While she was being filmed by agents of the state-run\u00a0Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting\u00a0(IRIB) organization, other agents brought boxes into the family\u2019s basement, which Ramin Seyed-Emami had used as a musical recording studio, and denied anyone entry for several hours.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy mother was alone that day and she wasn\u2019t allowed to see what they were doing in the basement,\u201d Seyed-Emami, who has been based in Vancouver, Canada since March 2018, told CHRI. \u201cOur lawyer, Mr. [Arash] Keykhosravi, also came to out the house but he was not allowed inside.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy in the world would agents take six boxes inside a suspect\u2019s home?\u201d he said. \u201cThey forced my mother to sign an itemized inventory but she never had any knowledge of what they had done during those four hours and what they had brought inside.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI loudly declare that planting things in our house without any supervision of these agents was against the law and any filming that took place was an attempt to stage a scene,\u201d Seyed-Emami added.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter the four-hour raid on our house, my mother had a nervous breakdown and had to be\u00a0taken to the hospital,\u201d said Seyed-Emami. \u201cWhat is the justification for constantly intimidating and harassing a family?\u201d<\/p>\n

Mombeini has been\u00a0barred\u00a0from leaving Iran\u00a0despite calls\u00a0from the Canadian government for her to be granted permission to travel back to Canada to live with her two sons who left Iran in March.<\/p>\n

According to Article 699 of Iran\u2019s\u00a0Islamic Penal Code, \u201cAnyone who, knowingly and deliberately, with the intent to accuse an individual, without his knowledge, manipulates or conceals the tools and means of a crime or any object for which its possession can be prosecuted.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is not known who ordered Bayani to be filmed while engaging in staged actions outside her cell or who ordered the raid on the Seyed-Emami home. But human rights groups have\u00a0documented\u00a0several instances in which detainees held on politically motivated charges or their\u00a0family members\u00a0were featured in\u00a0pseudo-documentary videos\u00a0that contained false information and which were produced by or in collusion with security agencies and then\u00a0broadcast by IRIB\u00a0to discredit and smear the detainees.<\/p>\n

Formerly Iran-based human rights lawyer\u00a0Shirin Ebadi, a Nobel Peace laureate,\u00a0wrote\u00a0in the New York Times in 2016 that Iranian agents had filmed her husband having an affair with another woman, a capital offense in Iran, and threatened him with prosecution if he did not make false statements on record to be broadcast by IRIB implicating his wife in national security crimes.<\/p>\n

Kavous Seyed-Emami\u2019s family has\u00a0petitioned IRIB\u00a0to allow them to respond to the unsubstantiated accusations the broadcaster has aired against the deceased conservationist.<\/p>\n

Three major state agencies in Iran, including the country\u2019s\u00a0highest security body, have stated that the detained conservationists are all innocent of the spying charges they\u2019re being held on.<\/p>\n

Their continued detainment has prompted an international outcry. The UN has called the charges against the conservationists \u201chard to fathom\u201d and in February 2018 stated, \u201cNowhere in the world, including Iran, should conservation be equated to spying or regarded as a crime.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet Iran\u2019s judiciary is continuing to try them while restricting their right to a full defense and despite one detainee\u2019s statement on record that she was forced to make\u00a0false \u201cconfessions\u201d\u00a0under the threat of torture.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor years, IRIB has been working with Iran\u2019s security apparatus to paint a picture of guilt around detainees held on politically motivated charges,\u201d said Ghaemi. \u201cThey have tried to make the cost of speaking out too high for their victims, but more and more Iranians are refusing to be silent.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cInstead of investigating conservationists and making a mockery out of the judicial process, Iran\u2019s judiciary should be investigating Seyed-Emami\u2019s sudden death in prison and the ill and unlawful treatment of these and all political prisoners held on trumped-up charges,\u201d he added.<\/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","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

February 11, 2019 \u2013 Amid eight conservationists\u2019\u00a0closed-door trial\u00a0in Iran\u2019s revolutionary court system, the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) has been informed that agents staged scenes around at least<\/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":[404,123,383,419,475,170],"class_list":["post-1439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-human-rights","tag-arash-keykhosravi","tag-evin-prison","tag-kavous-seyed-emami","tag-niloufar-bayani","tag-said-ghaemi","tag-shirin-ebadi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1439","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=1439"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1439\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1440,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1439\/revisions\/1440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}