Political Prisoner Illegally Transferred to Prison for Hardened Criminals after Letter to Supreme Leader
Ghadyani’s wife explained, “Judge Salavati told my husband’s lawyer that he wishes to send Ghadyani to another prison. He also said that he had received [Ghadyani’s] December 29 letter, but he didn’t give any exact reasons for this illegal transfer.”
Ghadyani’s family were not allowed to visit with him on Monday, January 14, and they were told that he is banned from having visitors because he will be transferred to another prison. Ghadyani’s wife told the Campaign that she plans to file a grievance with the Special Judges’ Court against Judge Salavati for his illegal ruling.
Asked when the transfer would take place, Marzieh Rahimi told the Campaign, “We have no idea. He was scheduled for a February 14 trial for one of the letters he wrote. I’m not sure which letter this trial was about. But the trial session was suddenly held on Monday, January 7. The Judge said, ‘I was having a slow day and decided to hold the court on that day!’ Of course, like other times, Ghadyani did not appear at his court session, because he regarded it as illegal, and only his lawyer went.”
Ghadyani’s wife explained, “Judge Salavati told my husband’s lawyer that he wishes to send Ghadyani to another prison. He also said that he had received [Ghadyani’s] December 29 letter, but he didn’t give any exact reasons for this illegal transfer.”
Rahimi continued, “This move is completely illegal. Of course, we know that Judge Salavati is a nobody and he receives his orders from somewhere else. Now, I want to go the Special Judges’ Court and complain about him, because any lawyer I asked told me that his conduct is against the law. The lawyers said that when a suspect is brought to court in Tehran, and he goes on to serve his sentence in a prison in Tehran, it is illegal to transfer him to another prison. Ghezel Hessar Prison is a prison for drug addicts, traffickers, and murderers. In my opinion, by transferring him there they want to destroy him, otherwise why would they want to take him to a prison that does not even have one political prisoner? They want to send an elderly prisoner with a heart problem to Ghezel Hessar Prison.”
Rahimi described how the family learned about Ghadyani’s impending transfer. “This morning (Monday, January 14), like any other week, we went to Evin Prison and filled out the visitation application form and waited. Then they told us that he was sent to Ghezel Hessar Prison. We asked why, and they said they didn’t know. We were about to go to the other prison when a group of prisoner families who were returning from the visitation hour told us that Abolfazl was still inside Ward 350 [of Evin Prison], according to their relatives. The families also said that the guards were going to take Ghadyani out of the ward today, but his cellmates prevented it and he is still in there. This is all we know. We returned and said that we know Abolfazl is still in the prison, and we want to see him. But this time they told us that because he is being transferred, he is prohibited from visitation. The Prison’s computer system showed that Ghadyani in being sent to Ward 209 [of Evin Prison] and then to Ghezel Hessar Prison,” she told the Campaign.
“After this incident, we went to the Prisons Organization and spoke with an official, but he expressed complete lack of knowledge about why this has happened. I will go to the Tehran Prosecutor’s Office tomorrow. Nobody has answered us. Everybody expresses lack of knowledge, from the Evin Prison authorities to the Prisons Organization,” Marzieh Rahimi added.
“My expectation is that the authorities should act according to the law. I am a former prisoner of the Shah’s era myself. We used to go to prison for the same kind of lawlessness. And now we have to tolerate the same kind of things. So, what has changed? Every year, when it gets around February 10 [the anniversary of the Islamic Revolution], they ask political prisoners to describe the events of the Shah’s era on the state television. But I am amazed that the same stories are being repeated again. Some 30 years have passed since then and instead of moving forward, we have moved backward,” she said about her expectation from the country’s authorities.
Abolfazl Ghadyani, a member of the Central Council of the Islamic Revolution Mojahedin Organization, was arrested on January 9, 2010, and was sentenced to six years in prison. Currently, he has three open court cases for writing critical letters to the country’s authorities from inside the prison. Ghadyani wrote a statement on December 29, 2012, which was published on Kaleme website, asking the Iranian nation to name the following day a day of “theocratic misery.”
On December 30, 2009, three days after Ashura Day 2009 during which many street protesters were killed and arrested, pro-government forces took to the streets to demonstrate. Referring to this day, Abolfazl Ghadyani says in his letter, “It would be appropriate for us, the supporters of the Green Movement, to call December 30, a day that is a complete portrayal of the humility and failure of despotism against the Iranian nation’s demands for freedom, the ‘day of theocratic misery.’”
