Arash Sadeghi Transferred for Sending Out a Letter

HRANA News Agency – Imprisoned student activist, Arash Sadeghi was transferred for arraignment for sending out a letter to Tehran's Prosecutor.

According to a report by Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), Arash Sadeghi, imprisoned student activist, was transferred from Ward 209 of Evin for arraignment on Tuesday, November 27, 2012.

When the Iranian student activist Arash Sadeghi was temporarily released from Tehran's Evin prison in November 2010, he anticipated a little respite from a year of harsh beatings and agony in jail.

Instead, within a few days, security officials had raided his home in middle of the night. As they broke their way into the house, Sadeghi's mother, who was alone with her daughter, suffered a heart attack.

The officials continued their search as she laid unconscious on the floor, ransacking the house and trying to find Sadeghi, who was at his grandfather's house that night. When the officials left, Farahnaz Dargahi was taken to hospital. She died within a few days.

In no time, Sadeghi, a 26-year-old student of philosophy at Tehran's Allameh Tabatabai University, was indeed taken back to prison. Since then he has spent all but one month in jail. For the past 11 months, Sadeghi has been held in solitary confinement without access to a lawyer.

Sadeghi is accused of "gathering and colluding with intent to harm national security", a vague charge used against many student activists.

Last week Sadeghi sent out a letter from inside Evin to Tehran's prosecutor, Abbas Jafari Dowlatabad, telling him he would not apologise.

"You had said that I should write an apology … I haven't done anything wrong to apologise and request clemency," he wrote. "It's you and your friends and colleagues who should apologise to the people of Iran for the physical elimination of some of your opposition in the past 33 years."