Iran Human Rights strongly condemns crackdown of the human rights lawyers by the Iranian authorities

Iran Human Rights strongly condemns crackdown of the human rights lawyers by the Iranian authorities

Iran Human Rights, November 17: Iranian state television has once again broadcast a purported statement by Sakineh Ashtiani, the Iranian woman sentenced to death by stoning for adultery in which she calls herself a "sinner."

The report also broadcast purported statements by two men whose faces were blurred that state TV identified as Ashtiani’s son, Sajjad Qaderzadeh, and her lawyer, Houtan Kian, both of whom were arrested last month. It also aired comments from two Germans who were detained allegedly while trying to interview Ashtiani’s family in October.

In the state TV report, Qaderzadeh retracted his previous allegations that his mother was tortured, and criticized Kian and Ashtiani’s previous lawyerMohammad Mostafaei for publicizing the case.

Ahtiani’s lawyer, Houtan Kian (picture) “confessed” that he advised Qaderzadeh to lie to Western journalists.

On the other hand, Tehran’s chief prosecuter, Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi confirmed yesterday in an interview with the state run Iranian news agency ISNA, the arrest of five lawyers during the past week.

According to various reports three female lawyers Sara Sabbaghian, Maryam Kian Arasi and Maryam Karbasi were arrested in Khomeini airport, on their arrival from Turkey earlier this week. All the three have been involved in human rights cases and defending their imprisoned colleagues, human rights activists, bloggers and women sentenced to death by stoning.

The two other lawyers who were arrested in Tehran last week are Roza Gharachorlou and Mohammad Hossein Nayeri, both involved in human rights cases.

Iranian authorities have previously arrested the human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh (picture), the defender of several minors on the death rowand Mohammad Oliaei-fard defender of several political prisoners. Both of them are being held in the notorious Evin prison.

Several other human rights lawyers such as Khalil Bahramian, Mohammad Ali Dadkhah and AbdolfattahSoltani (all defenders of several political prisoners) are waiting for their trials, while the human rights lawyer Mohammad Seifzadeh has been sentenced to 9 years in prison.

Iran Human Rights strongly condemns the televised "confessions" and arrest of the human rights lawyers by the Iranian authorities. Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, the spokesperson of Iran Human Rights, expressed his concern about the situation of the human rights in Iran and said: “This is continuation of the regime’s general crackdown of the Iranian civil society. In the past months we have been witnessing a broad campaign by the Iranian authorities against the human rights lawyers and the situation will probably get even worse”. He added “Iran is probably one of the few countries where defense lawyers are persecuted for doing their job”. “We ask the world community to play a more active role in defending the Iranian human rights lawyers and to ask for immediate release of all the detained lawyers and end persecuting them” he said.