New trial for Mohammad Ali Taheri

HRANA News Agency – last week, Mohammad Ali Taheri was summoned to the court from Solitary Confinement at Ward 2-A of Evin Prison while he was on hunger strike and was suffering from extreme weakness.

According to the report of HRANA, quoting from a close news site to Mohammad Ali Taheri, last week, while Mr Taheri was in extreme state of weakness due to his second week of hunger strike, he was summoned to the court from solitary confinement at Ward 2-A of Evin Prison. However, the trial was postponed to a later time as he was unable to speak due to his weakness.

According to this report, another hearing is arranged for 11 November, 2014. However, some unofficial sources on the internet anticipated that this hearing will also be cancelled without providing any reasons.

While Mr Taheri is on 17th day of his hunger strike, he has been injected several times with fluids but no attempts were made to send him to hospital. This could be the ground for the anticipations made about the Tuesday court cancelation.

The aim of the new hearing -after he was recently issued with a custody extension- is to prosecute him for new charges given to him by “Sepah (Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution ) Intelligence Services “ and “Science and Cultural Institute of Spiritual Health” .

Mr Taheri has been on hunger strike for the last 17 days in protest to this extension and the fact that his case remains open on the charges of “corruption on earth” and “Apostasy”. He has announced that he will remain on hunger strike until the closure of his case.

Mr Taheri is a conscience- scientific dissident and like many other Conscience Prisoners in Iran is facing untrue charges and allegations by the government. He was jailed on such charges since May 2011 in solitary confinement.

Although he had 2 lawyers for his case, his lawyers cooperated with government and Sepah Pasdaran Intelligence Services, so in effect he had no lawyer on his side to help him with his case. Recently a new lawyer has joined his defence but he has not received the permission to visit Mr Taheri yet.

According to the same source, although he has served more than half of his sentence and can be considered for a conditional released, he has been deprived of such right and was not yet transferred to the public ward. Also the temporary custody extension issued to him- while he is serving his sentence- to be used as a legal cover by the government to extend the time he is kept at solitary confinement. The government is aiming to utilize this time to create further grounds to charge him and to increase his sentence.

It is important to mention that on 22 October, 2014, several unofficial weblogs close to Sepah Intelligence Services announced a new 6-year-sentence for Mohammad Ali Taheri.

Several months ago, Mr Taheri wrote a letter which was published by one of his students. This letter was sent to several media and human right organisation blogs and summits. In this letter, Mr Taheri addressed the following issues: his unfair trial procedure; the kangaroo court he was trialled at; the fact that the judge took side on his case and was un-neutral; violation of several human rights by his interrogators, the judge, and the public prosecutor which affected his verdict. In this letter he appealed for help from Human Rights Organisations and asked them to stop the human right violations in Iran. He also stated that he is ready to give his account as a witness on the issues of human right violation.