Also below see Khaled Hardani’s family’s appeal to Ban Ki-moon, Secretary General of the United Nations

To Ban Ki-moon, Secretary General of the United Nations
Secretary General of the United Nations,

Receive the painful letter of these families whose children have been in exile, jail, and away from family and home, have been deprived of their legal rights, and have been in solitary confinement for long periods of time. They either have not had a defense attorney, or their attorneys have not had the permission to speak, or they have faced baseless charges of “moharebeh” (war against God or state), for which there are 4 kinds of punishments: execution, cutting hand and leg in opposite directions, exile, and prison. These prisoners are given jail terms, execution sentences, and exile at the same time. Some of these prisoners have been wounded by bullets and have lost some parts of their body.

The names of these 26 people are as follows:
Hamed Ahmadi, Jamshid Dehqani, Jahangir Dehqani, Kamal Mollaii, Seddiq Mohammadi, Hadi Hoseini, Loqman Moradi, Zanyar Moradi, Shahram Ahmadi (whose brother, Bahram Ahmadi, has been executed 27.12.2012, while he was under 18 at the time of arrest), Mohammad Yavar Rahimi (whose brother, Asqar Rahimi, was executed 27.12.2012), Mukhtar Rahimi, Bahman Rahimi, Poorya Mohammadi, Mohammad Qaribi, Farzad Shah Nazari, Poorya Qaderifard, Jamal Seyed Moosavi, and Loqman Amini.

These people are serving their jail terms in Rajai Shahr and Qezel Hesar prisons, and because their elderly mothers are not able to go for visits, the authorities will not even transfer them to their own cities. A few days ago, when a 67-year-old mother of one of these prisoners went to visit Shahram and Bahram Ahmadi, she had no news that her son Bahram was executed on 27 December 2012, and had been buried by the authorities. When officers of the visiting room said only Shahram was there and that they had executed Bahram 6 months ago, she got a stroke and for the last 12 days has been under intensive care, and doctors have said that she might lose her memory because of the shock she has received. This is a small fraction of pain and suffering of the families of these prisoners. We need to mention that we have written a few letters to Mr. Ahmadinajad and the leader of Iran, but gotten no results.

We ask you to write letters to the Iranian authorities, especially to the new president who has promised to free political prisoners, and ask them to cancel the death sentence of these prisoners and free them as soon as possible, so that they can come back to their families.

Sincerely
Families of 26 Prisoners Facing Execution
15 July 2013
Published by the International Committee against Execution
icaes.international@gmail.com // noexecutions.blogspot.com

Also below see Khaled Hardani’s family’s appeal to Ban Ki-moon, Secretary General of the United Nations

Respectful greetings from a family whose only breadwinner endured more than 14 years of incarceration, maltreatment and torture and is now being held illegally in Rajai Shahr Prison. Throughout these painful years he has lost hope.

His future is uncertain and he lives with the daily threat of death and the frequent reality of torture and physical mistreatment. Numerous false accusations were made against him, so that he now has no way to defend his legal rights. He has been severely mistreated several times by the secret police. During these long years he has not had a single day’s leave, not even to attend his mother’s funeral after she died of grief because of being parted from him.

The charge laid against him by a representative of the Tehran prosecution office was of endangering public safety aboard an aircraft. Because of prevailing lawlessness, arbitrary police officers engineered his death sentence after he had refused to take part in staged television interviews. Although his lawyer deemed this judgement political and requested an extraordinary review on grounds of incompatibility with Islamic jurisprudence, in conformity with article 8 of the Law Establishing the General and Revolutionary Courts, following an illegal order by the same organisations he was summoned for implementation of his death sentence in late 2004 – early 2005. Due to strong protests from human-rights organisations and from the people at large, Ayatollah Shahrudi, then head of the Judiciary, issued a stay of execution.

Such was the influence and power of these arbitrary and lawless police forces in judicial matters that despite the protests of the head of the Judiciary and the chief prosecutor, although they retreated from insisting on the death penalty, they nevertheless managed to have him cruelly sentenced to life in prison. This is despite the fact that in issuing the formal charges, the representative of the prosecution office had stated – and this was recorded on a tape which exists in the Judiciary’s archives – that according to section 5 of the one-article Aviation Sabotage Law, the defendant should go free. Instead, the stubborn insistence of these lawless and callous officers meant that this kind and compassionate father was denied his legal right to freedom.

Your Excellency, in view of the torments that Khaled and his family have been enduring these fourteen years, we urgently implore you, in your capacity as a defender of those who suffer, to demand the unconditional release of Khaled Hardani, and to request that the leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran put an end to all this lawlessness and arbitrary behaviour, so as to relieve a needy family of their anguish and fulfil the moral and legal mandate of the United Nations.

With warmest and most grateful salutations, The family of Khaled Hardani
15 July 2013
Published by the International Committee against Execution
icaes.international@gmail.com // noexecutions.blogspot.com