{"id":1501,"date":"2019-11-22T22:29:11","date_gmt":"2019-11-22T22:29:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/?p=1501"},"modified":"2019-11-22T22:29:51","modified_gmt":"2019-11-22T22:29:51","slug":"six-conservationists-sentenced-to-long-prison-terms-in-iran-after-two-years-behind-bars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/?p=1501","title":{"rendered":"Six Conservationists Sentenced to Long Prison Terms in Iran After Two Years Behind Bars"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"width: 554px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/iransos.com\/en\/photo\/2011\/e\/eight-wildlife.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"544\" height=\"275\" \/><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Preliminary Sentences Range Between 6 and 10 Years, Two Still Awaiting Ruling<\/p><\/div>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">November 20, 2019 \u2013 Six of the\u00a0eight wildlife conservationists\u00a0who have been detained in Iran since their arrest in January 2018 have been sentenced to prison terms ranging from six to ten years for espionage, a lawyer with knowledge of the cases told the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI). CHRI has confirmed these sentences with several people with direct knowledge of the court announcements.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><!--more--><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The eight conservationists, all affiliated with the Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation, spent nearly two years in Tehran\u2019s Evin Prison, with long periods in solitary confinement and often without access to lawyers, in a prosecution that has been universally\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.iranhumanrights.org\/2019\/02\/26-european-parliamentarians-call-on-president-rouhani-to-free-conservationists\/\">condemned<\/a>\u00a0as an outrageous travesty of justice\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.iranhumanrights.org\/2018\/12\/jane-goodall-among-132-conservationists-calling-for-jailed-colleagues-to-receive-fair-trial-in-iran\/\">around the globe<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) condemns these\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.iranhumanrights.org\/2019\/02\/mounting-evidence-that-clears-eight-conservationists-from-grave-charges-judiciary-still-relies-on-forced-confessions\/\">unlawful and unjustifiable sentences<\/a>\u00a0and urges the judicial authorities in Iran to review and reject these sentences and release the six who have been sentenced as well as the remaining two awaiting sentencing.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cThe authorities in Iran have given the conservationists the harshest sentences they could after two cruel years of detainment, during which time they tried in vain to find any evidence of wrongdoing,\u201d said CHRI Executive Director Hadi Ghaemi.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cIt was not these eight people who were on trial, it was Iran\u2019s judiciary on trial, and they proved their reckless abandonment of the law, their contempt for due process, and their willingness to destroy lives and ignore international outrage over these unlawful prosecutions,\u201d Ghaemi said.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Six out of the eight conservationists were convicted of \u201ccontacts with the U.S. enemy state\u201d and sentenced as follows by Branch 28 of the Revolutionary Court in Tehran, according to defense attorney Mohammad Hossein Aghasi:<\/p>\n<ul style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<li>Niloufar Bayani: 10 Years<\/li>\n<li>Morad Tahbaz: 10 Years<\/li>\n<li>Taher Ghadirian: 8 Years<\/li>\n<li>Houman Jowkar: 8 Years<\/li>\n<li>Amir Hossein Khaleghi: 6 Years<\/li>\n<li>Sepideh Kashani: 6 Years<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The court has not yet announced its decision against fellow conservationists Sam Rajabi and Abdolreza Kouhpayeh.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Bayani and Tahbaz had also been charged with \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.iranhumanrights.org\/2019\/11\/iran-conservationists-slapped-with-new-charge-22-months-after-being-arrested-by-revolutionary-guards\/\">gaining illegitimate income<\/a>\u201d but this was not mentioned in the court\u2019s verdict and it\u2019s not clear if they were convicted of the charge, according to Aghasi.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cWe know that Niloufar Bayani has also been ordered to repay all the salaries she received from the United Nations for the several years she worked for them,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The defendants were not allowed written copies of their verdicts. They were informed of the verdicts verbally. This is a common practice in politically motivated cases in Iran, where the authorities are reluctant to facilitate transparency regarding unsubstantiated charges.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Mohammad Hossein Aghasi, a Tehran-based attorney who previously represented two of the conservationists\u2014Sam Rajabi and Taher Ghadirian\u2014said his former clients had told their families they had been moved from solitary confinement in Evin Prison to cells with other inmates.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cGiven that the court has issued its verdict, the [conservationists] should be released on bail until the final verdict [issued by the Appeals Court],\u201d Aghasi said. \u201cTemporary detention is only for special cases in order to prevent contact between the suspects and witness intimidation\u2026 but none of these apply.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cThe court was supposed to issue a verdict a week after the end of the trial but it took longer and it still hasn\u2019t decided on two of the suspects. This will probably happen on Saturday [November 23]. The verdict will be published on the judiciary\u2019s online registry, SANA\u2026 but a written verdict will not be issued because in political and security cases, the authorities don\u2019t want to hand anything to the suspect or the lawyers with a signature or stamp on it. Instead they take the prisoner to court and ask him\/her and the lawyer to read the verdict.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Niloufar Bayani and Morad Tahbaz have received the heaviest sentence from Branch 28 of the Revolutionary Court.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cThey have sentenced Ms. Bayani and Mr. Tahbaz to 10 years in prison each. They were charged with \u2018contacts with the US enemy government,\u2019 which is punishable by imprisonment from one to ten years. They received the maximum term. We know that Niloyfar Bayani has also been ordered to repay all the salaries she received from the United Nations for the several years she worked for them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Aghasi told CHRI: \u201cI was a lawyer for Taher [Ghadirian] but Judge [Abolghasem] Salavati did not allow me to be present during the trial and effectively rejected my representation. I was also a lawyer for Sam [Rajabi] but in the same manner my representation was not accepted. Nevertheless, we know from existing evidence that the verdicts are not based on solid foundations and there was no strong evidence to prove the accusations against these activists.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cThe only crimes that have been committed in relation to the conservationists are their unlawful arrest, their cruel and inhuman treatment in prolonged solitary confinement, the denial of their due process rights, and their sham convictions and sentencing, without evidence or regard for the requirements of law,\u201d said Ghaemi.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>November 20, 2019 \u2013 Six of the\u00a0eight wildlife conservationists\u00a0who have been detained in Iran since their arrest in January 2018 have been sentenced to prison terms ranging from six to<\/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":[],"class_list":["post-1501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-human-rights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1501","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=1501"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1501\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1503,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1501\/revisions\/1503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iransos.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}