ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Many lawyers representing detained protesters in sham trials in Iran are also members of a militia linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) that has been responsible for the killing of hundreds of demonstrators, a senior official from Tehran’s Bar Association said on Monday.
The IRGC and its militia, the Basij, have been the main tools at the disposal of the Iranian authorities to violently crack down on the nationwide antigovernment protests sparked by the death of Zhina (Mahsa) Amini at the hands of the morality police in Tehran in mid-September.
Iranian human rights organizations monitoring the protests say at least 512 protesters and bystanders have been killed, including 69 children, by the security forces spearheaded by the IRGC and the Basij.
Families of detained protesters - which number over 20,000 - have criticized the hasty court proceedings, accusing the appointed lawyers of not picking up their phone calls and not seriously representing their loved ones in court.
According to Iranian penal code, those detained on national security charges, as is the case with almost all the detainees from the recent protests, should be appointed a lawyer trusted by the judiciary. The Tehran’s Bar Association is the only independent organization that can appoint independent lawyers however, the judiciary has taken a decision to appoint lawyers from its own list of trustees and from another list known as “Amendment 48” to represent the detained protesters.
Amendment 48 refers to a footnote to Article 48 of the penal code which states that any person detained should have a lawyer from the time of their arrest to represent them, except in crimes related to national security. The defendant on national security charges has no right to have a lawyer for a week from the time of their arrest and only lawyers approved by the head of the judiciary can then represent them.
When asked about the criteria which the lawyers of the Amendment 48 are selected by the head of the judiciary to represent the detained protesters, Mehdi Davoudzadeh who heads a commission providing legal aid for detained protesters at Tehran Bar Association said “swear to God, we are as unaware as you are, but as far as I know they are from retired judges and lawyers from the families of Basij and veterans [Iran-Iraq war]. These lawyers are selected by the head of the judiciary himself.”
Davoudzadeh told Etemad newspaper in an interview published on Monday that his organization, representing the entire Tehran province with a population of over 14 million people, received only 20 to 30 letters from three magistrates courts to appoint lawyers.
“It appears that most of the lawyers in these courts are selected from the lawyers of the Judiciary’s Center for lawyers and in particular from the lawyers on Amendment 48 list.”
One of the magistrates asked Davoudzadeh to appoint lawyers from the judiciary trusted lists to which Davoudzadeh said he had no knowledge of who was on the list.
Tehran Bar Association receives around 8,000 requests annually, including from children, to appoint lawyers for those who cannot afford one.
“The judges [in security courts] do not want to use other lawyers from outside their own trusted circle of lawyers because they could challenge the court and the ruling of the judge in cases of [charge of] enmity against god (moharebeh). In fact these steps are taken [by the judges] to show the process of dealing with the cases is ‘proper’. That is why most of the lawyers and the bar associations are against the lawyers of the Amendment 48 list.”
Davoudzadeh rejected the death sentences of Mohsen Shekari and Majidreza Rahnavard on the basis of enmity against god and said that the charge did not apply in their cases.
“I have not studied the cases of the accused but based on the news and what has been published on national TV … I believe the sentences of individuals like [Mohsen] Shekari was not moharebeh. Because one of the requirement of moharebeh is for the person to take up arms and scare people but he took up arms and wounded an officer and not scare a lot of people.”
“Executions following unfair trials constitute an arbitrary deprivation of life,” UN rights experts said in a joint statement in Deecember following the execution of Shekari, urging Iran to establish a moratorium on executions “with a view to abolishing the death penalty."
Tens of thousands of protesters are still languishing in prisons and detention centers across Iran as protest continue to challenge the Islamic Republic. Amnesty International said on December 22 that at least 20 protesters were facing imminent risk of execution.
On Monday a court in the northern province of Mazandaran issued two death sentences for 18 year old protester Mehdi Mohammadifard for enmity against god and corruption on earth.
