Hou

121

His Excellency, The Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

With greetings

We, the families of lawyer dervishes who are jailed for 17 months and whose profession is to defend the right of others, but they themselves are waiting for a justly trial and verdict behind bars.

Yourself is born in Khorasan, therefore perhaps you are aware much than anybody else that “Nematollahi Gonabadi Order”did not just emerged yesterday in order to end today.

We want to ask you these questions that:

1- Do all the citizens of our nation have equal rights in our constitution?

2- Who or where are the sources of so much oppressions and undue actions on distracting the worship-places of Gonabadi dervishes in different towns, who always wish for social peace and stability in all aspects of society?

3- What would be the consequences of continuation of such oppressions and where are they leading us?

4- What have we propagate against, in our worship-places (Hosseiniyeh)?

5- Where are the nonconformists of our sons and husbands actions against the constitution? Why they must behind bars for more than 17 months without trial?

6- They are lawyer and attorneys themselves, how could they break the law?

7- They are Dervishes and also lawyers of other dervishes to defend the rights of their fellow coterie dervishes for the distraction of their worship-places and also their rights of equality, but it seems that there are some people who cannot listen to their voice calling for justice.

For informing you over the process that you might not probably be informed on which, we are wondering where to begin?

Should we start with what the reason was that a number of attorneys were imprisoned while try to defend the clients for their rights that were violated and suddenly they were faced with security and political accusations?

Or should we write about 17 months imprisonment without a proper court session? A court that neither their lawyers were allowed to talk to their clients nor would the court permit the lawyers to attend for dependence?

Should we tell you about the violations taken place in the process of their cases that were followed illegally, which were repeatedly and officially notified and protested to courts which resulted into no consequence?

Should we also explain to you about the reason why that the dervishes lawyers refused to attend the court session because the legal procedure were not met by the authorities and for this reason they were sentenced to solitary confinement in Ward 209 of Evin prison?

Should we talk to you about the torments we faced and heard that they were beaten up while some of them were in pain because of severe illness they have had?

We have written many latter of complaints to different authorities whose silence on the case showed their indifference on violation of law and the tyranny. We have also explained that, these persons are professionals in the knowledge of law and have requested to attend the court for the reason of keeping the integrity and respect of law and order in a court where the most basis of court manifests are violated by the judge himself.

These dervish lawyers have protested in many ways in order to keep the prestige of law and court regulations. They feel as their duty to keep their

oath that “Not to be silent when the law is being broken” and to” Respect independent judges”. These lawyers are absolutely aware that their actions prolong and make their prison times more severe.

As we have explained frequently, their non-participation does not indicate that they do not believe in the law or feel no respect for the court and its rules on the country, this court of action proves their commitment to the existing laws because there is no better way to respect the law than defending its actual implementation.

Beside the forgotten law which says that trials must be held in public and in the presence of a jury(Article 165 of the constitution) and disregarding the long arguments which prove that the revolutionary court is not legally qualified to deal with this case, the followings are some of the reasons why these lawyers could not take part in this trial (All of their written down in a letter addressed to the judge himself):

1- The non-observance of the legal rules and regulations necessary for holding public and revolutionary court.

2- The minimum term of imprisonment for these crimes had expired and therefore the accused were illegally kept in custody (which shows that the judge is no more committed to the principle of non-partisanship and should himself be prosecuted according to 575 of the Islamic criminal code for

disregarding the rights of accused).

3- The investigation of this case has been transferred by the prosecutor to the agents of the ministry of information, where in this case the security forces are themselves one side of the conflict and cannot act as the agents of the court.

4- The legal representatives of the accused had no access to the contents of the case and no permission to meet with their clients (without presenting the case and all the related evidence, no court can be held, our lawyers at no time had any access to the contents of this case).

5- According to law the accused should be informed at least five days before the beginning of the trial to prepare his defense, but in this case we were informed orally only 10 hours before that. Can such a trial be fair or justly? Does waiting for a fair trial have this such heavy penalty?

One of accused “Mr. Mostafa Daneshjou” suffers from pulmonary disease and has lost 40% of his lungs and the other one “Mr. Hamid Reza Moradi is suffering from heart disease and also suffers from bleed vessels in his foot and surgeons have diagnosed amputation risk.

Although many of those problems have been explained in our previous letters to authorities and managers of prison, unfortunately the silence of these responsible authorities have taken away and all that we have hoped and endeavored for justice to take place.

This letter is being written on a compassionate warning base, before cases such as “Sattar Beheshti”, ” Sahabi” and “Saber” are added to the prison history of a country which has Islamic Shariah law claims, so that some serious steps to be taken and ordered by you for the Prestige, Respect and the Honor of your position.

With respect and thanks

Families of jailed Gonabadi dervishes’s lawyers

Moradi Sarvestani-Daneshjou-Yadollahi-Eslami-Karampour-Behroozi-Entesari

Copied sent to:

Honorable Iran’s Judiciary Chief; Ayatollah Amoli Larijani

Honorable Head and speaker of Iran’s parliament ;Mr. Ali Larijani

Honorable Chairman of the Expediency Discernment Council of Iran; Hojjatoleslam Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani

Honorable Head of Tehran Justice; Mr. Alireza Avaee

Honorable Chairman of the parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission; Mr. Alaeddin Boroujerdi

Honorable Head of Iranian prisons Organization; Mr. Gholam-Hossein Esmaili