In a letter to Tehran Prosecutor General (the District Attorney), a number of Evin ward 350 political prisoners have spoken out regarding infringement on the legal rights of the political prisoners. Prisoners that apparently have a very different sets of made up and illegal rules imposed upon them.

These prisoners are even deprived of the basic rights that are granted to non-political prisoners who are convicted of murder or rape. Legal rights such as, access to telephone, face to face visitation with their families and use of furlough.

A number of these political prisoners, in a letter, have once again reminded Tehran’s Prosecutor General that history will soon judge those who have inflicted such cruelty on them and their families.

Bellow is the full text of this letter that was provided to Kalameh by the anonymous friends of the Green Movement.

The Kalameh site will not publish the names of the prisoners who signed this letter. The full text of the letter is as follows:

Mr. Jafari-Dowlatabadi
Prosecutor General of Tehran

Today that we are writing this letter to you, we are not requesting from you, or from anyone else, our freedom. This is despite the fact that we consider our sentences unjust. Here we are only speaking about the violations of our legal rights that have been imposed upon us.

More than one year has passed since your term as the Prosecutor General began. During this period, many of us have been deprived of the basic legal rights of a prisoner. Rights such as; face to face meetings with our families, access to telephone and granting of furlough.

All of these limitations on our rights have been as a result of your direct orders. And, this has been our share of your reign as the Prosecutor General of Tehran.

As Tehran Prosecutor you apparently do believe that, face to face meetings, phone access and use of furlough are legal rights of a prisoner, for these rights are currently allowed and implemented in prisons across the country, except for some of the political prisoners who have been deprived these rights.

You personally are responsible for these illegal actions against us. Allowing face to face meetings with our families and granting of furlough is decided in your office, and in a selective manner that only you choose and decide.
Therefore, you have made many of the political prisoners part of a separate group incarcerated under a different set of rules and regulations.

You, have taken from the Bureau of Prisons the authority to allow the political prisoners a 3-5 minute daily phone call and face to face family visits, and have placed this authority under the jurisdiction of your Prosecution office. By doing this, you have tried to restore part of the power and authority that was lost to your office.

Now, a year has passed since your authoritative reign began in the office of prosecution. Certainly, you yourself know best how much influence you have had in inflicting these injustices. You have even pointed out some of these injustices in your meetings with some of the political prisoners, except you only disagreed as to the degree they were applied.

You have even admitted to some of the political prisoners and their families, that the only crime these people committed was to raise their voices loudly.

Mr, Jafari-Dowlatabadi,

In meetings with families of the political prisoners you have stated over and over that granting face to face visits is only due to the kindness of the Prosecutor.

You probably believe that they should be grateful for your kindness and grace. Kindness and grace that has been bestowed upon them only after coming to your office over and over and waiting before the closed doors of the Prosecutor’s office and his coworkers’ offices for hours upon hours.

It probably makes you feel joy to think that you have granted a 20 minutes face to face meeting to these families out of your kindness and your grace. You may think that you will be able to reap the rewards of your kindness in the hereafter and at the same time enjoy it’s worldly blessings.

Families of a number of political prisoners live in cities other than Tehran. Their only means of contact with their families was a phone call, a daily call that only lasted 2-3 minutes each time. Even though, many times those phone calls were disconnected by prison officials in order to, as you said, make us “behave”.

This kind of disciplinary action was taken because when a death row prisoner was being taken to be executed, or when a prisoner was being exiled to another prison, we gathered around that prisoner to say goodbye and to look at each other for the last time.

These gatherings would then become an excuse for the prison officials to disconnect and ban phone calls, because they considered it against the rules.

When you banned phone calls all together, you reminded us, you made the statement that we have to remember to “behave” at all times every day.

A statement that you have not hesitated to make over and over to us and to our families. You repeatedly have made the statement that the reason for delays in our cases is because we have not yet learned how to “behave”.

We can not understand what your duty is? Is it to teach the political prisoners how to behave or is your duty to enforce the rule of law.

Also, along with bringing your attention to the fact that you are the Prosecutor General of the largest city in the Middle East, as such, we ask you, is this the language you should use in dealing with the people? Even if these people are guilty in your opinion?

Furthermore, what crime have the families of these guilty people committed that they should be treated in such a way by you?

Mr. Jaffari-Dowlatabadi,

We understand you very well. While you sit in your office, many men, women and children look to you to receive approval for face to face visits or for furlough approval for their loves ones. In those moments you probably feel grand and important!

More than a year has passed since you have become grand and important, meaning one year since the time that you placed restrictions on face to face visits, on granting furloughs and imposed a ban on all phone calls.

However, we are writing these lines not to ask or request anything of you, but for registering these facts in the pages of history. History that will soon judge you and us.

Although, it seems that you have a poor historical memory, for all you really have to do is recall the psychological and social status of the person whom you have succeeded.

We don’t think any freedom loving Iranian would like to be in your place and certainly if you had any respect for the rule of law and justice, you would feel the same.

Singed by number of ward 350 political prisoners
(signatures being withheld by Kalameh site)

By Persianbanoo
Source : Kalameh