Momeni’s wife: we're prohibited from visiting him

Fatemeh Adinehvand, wife of prisoner of conscience and student activist Abdollah Momeni, told the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran that her husband is under interrogation in prison and is not in good spirits. “On Monday, 24 October, when I went to visit him in prison, he wasn’t in good spirits but he also didn’t say anything about his interrogation. I don’t know if he was being interrogated before our meeting or after it. But either way he was not in good spirits this week.”

Adinehvand also spoke about her husband’s physical problems. “Currently he is taking medication for his ear, which was torn, due to the beatings during his interrogation, hoping that the adhesion in his eardrum will be removed. But a day before this week’s visit, without telling us so we could at least find him a good doctor, they took him to the hospital for his skin disease and they tested him. I don’t even have the results for those tests. Abdollah said this only at the end of our visit.”

Adinehvand added that Momeni’s problems in prison have increased since he wrote a letter to the Supreme Leader. “Since he wrote that letter last year, they don’t give us any more in person visits. I don’t think the Prosecutor made that decision himself, because he also has children and he knows that children need to see their fathers. After that letter, I went every month to request an in-person visit and I haven’t been granted one; I don’t know how their conscience is content. My children are young and are forbidden from seeing their father, as am I. How I would love to embrace my husband. I don’t know what grudge they hold against Abdollah that no matter what they do, they are not satisfied. They don’t grant us visits, nor phone calls.”

“Because he wrote the truth, we were banned from visitations. Abdollah had written the truth in his letter, saying for example that they put his head in the toilet so that Abdollah would read the confessions they had written for him in his court. I can’t believe that a person could do those things with another human being.”

Momeni’s wife asked the authorities the reasons for heir refusal to grant her in-person visits. “Their answer was that he wrote a letter and that I give interviews. They said, ‘you yourself said in an interview last year that when your husband came home at Iranian New Year’s last year, he would wak up in the middle of the night and say: ‘don’t hit me!’ Well, I only said the truth; I didn’t lie,” said Adinehvand.

“I’ve had a very hard life. My first husband, Mr. Momeni’s brother was missing for thirteen years and I raised my five-month-old child by myself. But I think these days are the hardest of my life. Either I go to prison and I see Abdollah in the cell there or I return home and I see my children alone. My home is lifeless. My home is dark. These days are very hard days,” continued Adinehvand.

Abdollah Momeni, former spokesperson for the student alumni group Daftar-e Tahkim-e Vahdat, was arrested after the June 2009 presidential election and sentenced to four years and eleven months in prison. He is currently in Ward 350 of Evin Prison serving his sentence.

Source: International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran