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RAPID
ACTION NETWORK 02
July 2008 Update
#3 to RAN 30/07 IRAN: Kurdish journalist sentenced to 11 years The
Writers in Prison Committee of International PEN is shocked by the
eleven-year prison sentence handed down to Kurdish journalist Mohammad
Sadiq Kabudvand on 22 June 2008 on charges of “acting against national
security” for his Kurdish rights activism. International PEN remains
seriously concerned for his health, following reports that he suffered a
stroke on 19 May 2008 and was denied access to adequate medical care.
International PEN is calling for the immediate and
unconditional release of Mohammad Sadiq Kabudvand in accordance with Article
19 of the United Nations International Covenant of Civil and Political
Rights (ICCPR), to which Iran is a signatory. International PEN seeks
assurances of his well being, guarantees that his basic rights are being
respected and that he is given full access to all necessary medical care as
a matter of urgency. According
to PEN’s information, Mohammad
Sadiq Kabudvand, editor of the banned weekly Payam-e
mardom-e Kurdestan, was arrested on 1 July 2007 at his place of work in
Tehran by plain-clothed security officers. Following his arrest, Kabudvand
was initially taken to his house in Tehran, where security officers
confiscated three computers, books, photographs and personal documents,
before taking him away to the Intelligence Ministry’s Section 209 of Evin
Prison, where he is said to have been ill-treated. He spent the first five
months of his detention in solitary confinement. His family has been unable
to raise the bail that could have enabled him to be freed pending trial.
Kabudvand’s trial began on 25 May 2008, and he was sentenced at a closed
trial on 22 June 2008 to eleven years in prison by the Tehran Revolutionary
Court for forming a human rights organisation in Iran’s Kurdish region. Amnesty
International gives the following background: ‘Chair
of the Kurdish Human Rights Organization (RMMK) based in Tehran, Mohammad
Sadiq Kabudvand, is also the editor of Payam-e Mardom-e Kurdestan (Kurdistan
People’s Message) a weekly published in Kurdish and Persian, which was
banned on 27 June 2004 after only 13 issues for ‘disseminating separatist
ideas and publishing false reports’. Convicted of ‘disseminating tribal
issues and publishing provocative articles’ and ‘spreading lies with the
intention of upsetting public opinion’ by a Revolutionary Court in
Sanandaj, western Iran, Mohammad Sadiq Kabudvand received on 18 August 2005
a suspended prison sentence of 18 months, and a five-year ban on working as
a journalist. His conviction was reportedly upheld on appeal, but the
suspended prison sentence was increased to one year’s actual imprisonment.
In September 2006 he was summoned to begin his prison sentence, but remained
free pending an appeal against his conviction to the Supreme Court.’ Kabudvand
has reportedly written two books on democracy and a third on the women’s
movement in Iran, which were not given publishing licences. International
PEN is deeply concerned about an apparant pattern of repression against
journalists and human rights activists in Iranian Kurdistan, which has been
ongoing since unrest
broke out in the Kurdish areas of Iran in July 2005, and was violently
suppressed by the authorities. Several other
Iranian-Kurdish journalists are currently detained, including Kaveh
Javanmard, Adnan Hassanpour and Ejlal Qavami (see previous alerts). RECOMMENDED
ACTION Please
send appeals: §
Protesting
the 11-year prison sentence against journalist and writer Mohammad Sadiq
Kabudvand; ·
Expressing
serious concerns for Kabudvand’s health, following reports that he
suffered a stroke and was denied access to necessary medical care; ·
Calling
for his immediate and unconditional release on humanitarian grounds and in
accordance with Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights, to which Iran is a signatory; ·
Expressing
concerns at the apparent pattern of repression against journalists and human
rights activist in Kurdish Iran. APPEALS
TO: Supreme
Leader of the Islamic Republic His
Excellency Ayatollah Sayed ‘Ali Khamenei, The
Office of the Supreme Leader Shoahada
Street, Qom, Islamic Republic of Iran Email:
info@leader.ir or istiftaa@wilayah.org
Head
of the Judiciary His
Excellency Ayatollah
Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi Ministry
of Justice, Park-e Shahr, Tehran,
Islamic Republic of Iran Email:
via Judiciary website: Iranjudiciary.org/feedback_en.html Salutation: Your Excellency COPIES
TO: President: His
Excellency Mahmoud Ahmadinejad The
Presidency, Palestine
Avenue, Azerbaijan
Intersection, Tehran,
Islamic Republic of Iran Fax:
Via Foreign Ministry: +98 21 6 674 790 (mark:
"Please forward to H.E. President Ahmadinejad") Email:
dr-ahmadinejad@president.ir
via
website: www.president.ir/email If
possible please send a copy of your appeal to the diplomatic representative
for Iran in your country. Centres
are encouraged to consider Mohammad Sadiq Kabudvand for honorary membership. ***Please
check with this office if sending appeals after 20 July 2008***
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