Mohammed Nazari has been in jail for 25 years on charges of having connections to the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI).
PDKI, along with the Kurdistan Democratic Party-Iran (PDK-I), and two branches of the left-wing Komala party, have been based in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq since 1992. The groups often engage in sporadic military confrontations with Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) along the Iran-Kurdistan Region border.
“Through all these years, my family has followed up on my case. In 2011 my mother visited all the organizations and relevant centers in order for my verdict to be eased or for a pardon to be issued for me,” reads Nazari’s letter from his prison cell published Wednesday.
“She even visited the supreme leader’s office, but their answer for her was: never follow up on the case of your son. Be grateful to God that he has not yet been hanged to death.”
Nazari attributes his mother’s death to her struggle for his release.
“Due to such pressure from the security agencies, my mother suffered a stroke, eventually dying,” Nazari’s letter reads.
A successful case review by the state public prosecutor in 2012 offered a glimmer of hope for his release, but Tehran’s Amnesty Commission did not implement the decision, the letter explains.
Despite the setback, Nazari’s family persevered.
“In 2016, my brother stepped in, beginning follow ups on my case. He was threatened as a result by security agencies. His body eventually ended up lying on a street. By appearance, he had died of a stroke,” he wrote.
Nazari has implored his sister to take what happened to their mother and brother as a cautionary tale.
“I have called on my sister not to follow up on my case for release at all. I just do not want to lose the third member of my family.”
Tensions between Tehran and Washington have been increasingly fraught since May 2018 when US President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew the US from the landmark 2015 nuclear accord and reimposed crippling economic sanctions.
Tehran has accelerated its crackdown on civil activists, rights groups and women activists as it attempts to maintain order over a country buckling under the weight of US economic sanctions.
Ethnic minority groups including Kurds and Azeris are disproportionally detained and more harshly sentenced for acts of political dissidence, according to a mid-July 2019 report from the United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights in Iran.
Labor activists, journalists, satirists, environmentalists, anti-death penalty campaigners, and researchers have been detained, with some sentenced in trials whose fairness has been questioned.
Recent arrests by Iranian authorities include those of three family members of Masih Alinejad, a prominent US-based Iranian journalist and activist, as retribution for her women’s rights activism, Amnesty International revealed Wednesday.
Alinejad is the founder of a series of high profile Iranian women’s rights campaigns, including White Wednesdays, a campaign calling on women in Iran to protest forced veiling laws in Iran, which has gathered widespread support among women and girls in recent years.
“These arrests are a blatant attempt by the Iranian authorities to punish Alinejad for her peaceful work defending women’s rights,” said Philip Luther, Amnesty International’s Research and Advocacy Director for the Middle East and North Africa.
“Arresting the relatives of an activist in an attempt to intimidate her into silence is a despicable and cowardly move.”
British-Kurdish social anthropologist Kameel Ahmady, who researched female genital mutilation for several years in the country, was detained last month and has been held in Evin prison ever since.
Authorities have given no indication as to why he was detained.
