October 18-2013
The Islamic Republic has sentenced five ethnic Azeris to nine-year prison terms for founding an organization that advocates a referendum on the independence of Azeri-majority areas of Iran.
Human Rights Watch said an appeals court recently affirmed the nine-year prison sentences for each of the five men.
The five were convicted in a closed two-day trial for “founding an illegal group” and “propaganda against the state” in connection with their membership in Yeni GAMOH, an Azeri party, members told Human Rights Watch.
Yeni GAMOH, which stands for “New Southern Azerbaijan National Awakening Movement” in the Azeri language, has for more than a decade promoted Azeri cultural and linguistic identity, along with secularism and the right to self-determination for the Azeris of Iran, members say.
“Speaking out peacefully for their rights or for more autonomy is no reason to send members of a minority group away for long prison terms,” said Joe Stork, acting Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “We have seen no evidence suggesting that these men, or their group, have done anything but exercise their right to protest.”
With an estimated population of at least 15 million, mostly concentrated in the northwest, Azeris constitute the country’s largest ethnic minority and more than 20 percent of the population. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenehi is half Azeri.
Human Rights Watch reported that an appeals court in Tabriz upheld the nine-year prison sentences June 16 for Mahmud Fazli, Ayat Mehrali Beyglou, Shahram Radmehr, Latif Hassani, and Behboud Gholizadeh on national security-related charges.
The ruling came less than two months after they were convicted by the Tabriz Revolutionary Court. The five men are currently in Rajai Shahr Prison, in Karaj.
On July 13, the five men started a hunger strike to protest their trial and the conditions of their detention, family members said. All five have now ended their hunger strike.
Zahra Farajzadeh, Beyg-lou’s wife, told Human Rights Watch that none of the defendants’ lawyers had access to their case files during the investigative phase. She said the lawyers repeatedly requested a delay in the trial until they had time to review the charges against their clients and prepare a proper defense, but that the judge convened the trial a week after allowing them access to the files.
The detainees are all members of Yeni GAMOH’s central committee, and Hassani is the party’s general secretary.
Authorities had first arrested the men in 2010 in connection with their membership in the group, and revolutionary courts had sentenced them to various prison terms, ranging from six to 18 months, on charges similar to those handed down in April. Radmehr served his six-month sentence prior to his latest arrest, while the others had not yet been summoned to serve their terms.
Article 15 of Iran’s Constitution designates Persian as the “official and shared language of Iran” but allows for the “use of local and ethnic languages in the press and media and teaching of their literature in schools alongside Persian.”
Article 19 of the Constitution states that “the people of Iran, no matter what ethnicity or tribe, have equal rights; attributes such as color or race or language will not be a reason for privilege.”