Political prisoners tortured, attacked and convicted in Iran; Urgent call to action

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Criminal “rebellion” verdicts against 5 political prisoners after months of interrogation and torture in Evin prison

Brutal attack on Khorramabad prisoners, transfer to solitary confinement and sentencing of martyr's father to 6 years in prison

Urgent call for immediate action to save the lives of political prisoners

On Tuesday, May 14, the regime's justice system charged five political prisoners – Abolhassan Montazer, Pouya Ghobadi, Mohammad Taghavi, Vahid Bani-Amirian and Babak Alipour – with “rebellion” and membership in the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI) after several months of accusation. interrogation and torture in section 209 of Evin prison. This trumped-up charge carries harsh penalties, including execution or a long prison term.

Abolhassan Montazer, 65, was previously arrested and imprisoned in the 1980s and again in 2018 and 2020. He was last arrested in January 2024 and suffers from heart, lung and kidney diseases, as well as arthritis.

Pouya Ghobadi, 32, an electrical engineer, was arrested in March 2024 at the Chaldorean border and transferred to Evin. He had already been arrested twice.

Mohammad Taghavi, arrested in March 2024, had already served three years in prison for association with the MEK.

Vahid Bani-Amirian, 32, who holds a master's degree in management, was arrested in January 2024. He has been imprisoned for a total of four years since 2017.

Babak Alipour, 33, a law graduate, was arrested in January 2024. He was previously arrested in November 2018 in Rasht and served four years in prison.

In another development, on May 20, the second branch of the Karaj Revolutionary Court sentenced Mashallah Karami, the father of 2022 uprising martyr Mohammad Mehdi Karami, to five years in prison for “gathering and collusion with intent to commit a crime against national security. and one year for “propaganda against the regime”. Mashallah Karami was arrested on August 22, 2023, during a raid by security forces. The same court also sentenced the family lawyer of Mohammad Mehdi Karami, arrested last August, to six years in prison for another inhumane act.

In another criminal act, Khamenei's henchmen at Khorramabad Central Prison violently transferred several prisoners protesting the water cutoff to solitary confinement on the orders of the prison director and the security chief of the prison. prison. During this attack, the arms and legs of several protesting prisoners were broken. Additionally, two prisoner brothers and MEK supporters, Mohammad and Mehdi Khodakarami, were exiled from solitary confinement in Khorramabad Central Prison to Parsilon Prison in the same city.

The Iranian Resistance urgently calls on the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Human Rights Council and other relevant United Nations bodies, as well as the European Union and its Member States, to take immediate action to save the lives of the five accused prisoners. of rebellion and to obtain the release of all political prisoners. He also highlights the need for an international fact-finding mission to visit Iranian prisons and meet prisoners.

Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI)

May 27, 2024