Mohammed Seifzadeh, 76, is the “godfather” of Iranian human rights attorneys
Punished for signing letter to UN on unlawful executions in Iran
“Mohammed Seifzadeh is the godfather of human rights attorneys in post-revolutionary Iran,” mentioned Hadi Ghaemi, government director of the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI).
“The state’s try and re-incarcerate him at age 76 is a chilling testomony to the lasting affect he has had as a relentless defender of human rights in a system constructed on the systematic destruction of due course of,” he added.
Seifzadeh, 76, was summoned to Tehran’s Evin Prison in mid-August 2024 on expenses of “propaganda towards the state” and “publication of falsehoods” for signing a joint letter by 45 Iranian activists calling on UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to oppose political executions in Iran.
“we, [through] “Can your instant response, the response of world opinion, the democratic governments of the free world and the enlightened thinkers who love humanity, cease the machine of executions and repression in Iran?” the letter learn.
The letter, launched in December 2022 amid the “Women, Life and Freedom” protests sweeping throughout Iran, was additionally signed by outstanding Iranian attorneys Nasrin Sotoudeh and Shirin Ebadi, who labored with Seifzadeh on the Iranian Center for the Defense of Human Rights, which was closed by the Islamic Republic of Iran in 2008, 5 years after the founding of the nation.
The Center’s main employees have suffered extreme persecution, together with arbitrary imprisonment and work bans, and the attorneys who stay in Iran stay underneath the day by day menace of re-imprisonment.
Seifzadeh vehemently denies the costs levelled towards him, saying in 2023:
“Article 500 of the Islamic Penal Code is opposite to the provisions of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the correct to freedom of expression and even to Islamic legislation. Moreover, this text is opposite to articles 4 and 24 of the Iranian Constitution. Regarding the cost of ‘publishing lies’, it ought to be famous that we didn’t publish the letter, it was revealed from overseas. On the opposite hand, there aren’t any lies within the contents of the letter and it accommodates occasions that really befell in Iran. Our letter was not supposed to stir public opinion both, as a result of that was not our intention and was not what truly occurred. In the top, public opinion was not stirred in any respect.”
The verdict was handed down by Branch 29 of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Court in Tehran in May 2023 and upheld by the Appeals Court in July of the identical 12 months.
Seifzadeh has been imprisoned 13 instances prior to now 30 years, 5 instances underneath the regime of King Mohammed Pahlavi and eight instances throughout the Islamic Republic.
“Remaining silent in response to this brazen try and silence Seifzadeh, and certainly all human rights attorneys in Iran, is tantamount to supporting the Islamic Republic of Iran’s brutal crackdown on peaceable activism and dissent,” Ghaemi mentioned.