{"id":6715,"date":"2017-01-11T01:35:39","date_gmt":"2017-01-11T06:35:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/?p=6715"},"modified":"2017-01-11T01:35:39","modified_gmt":"2017-01-11T06:35:39","slug":"iranian-political-prisoners-demand-the-worlds-attention","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/6715\/","title":{"rendered":"Iranian political prisoners demand the world’s attention"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"201711011859908203811_iranian-protests-against-executions-in-iran-under\"BY ALI SAFAVI<\/em><\/p>\n

The Hill Jan. 9, 2017 <\/strong>– On Jan. 4, the reports came from within Gohardasht Prison, near the Iranian capital Tehran, that activist and political prisoner Ali Moezzi, still behind bars despite completing his term, had disappeared.
\nMoezzi has faced repression from the Islamic Republic since its earliest days. He spent years in prison in the 1980’s for his affiliation with the Iranian opposition group, the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (PMOI\/MEK).
\nHe served two more years, beginning in 2008, for having visited his two daughters residing in Camp Ashraf, Iraq. He has arrested again in 2011, seven months after his latest release, because he had attended the funeral of a fellow political prisoner, another MEK activist who had died because authorities denied him access to life-saving medical treatment.
\nOver the course of Moezzi\u2019s long history as a prisoner of conscience, he has faced many different forms of pressure, including the arbitrary and unlawful extension of his most recent prison term beyond its specified four years.
\nThe extension signals the Iranian regime\u2019s aversion to letting its political prisoners go free. In Moezzi\u2019s case, as in many others, that aversion was underscored by numerous explicit death threats.
\nMoezzi\u2019s life was already in danger before this latest development. He was reportedly subjected to routine beatings and torture and, as with many ill or elderly prisoners, the absence of medical care and dire prison conditions had aggravated pre-existing health problems.
\nMoezzi\u2019s most recent arrest came shortly after he had been released from a hospital after undergoing surgery following a cancer diagnosis.
\nOver the years, the regime has repeatedly demonstrated its callous and deliberate disregard for the health and well-being of prisoners, especially those detained for political or religious \u201coffenses.\u201d
\nOne prominent, recent example is the case of Arash Sadeghi, who is serving a 15-year prison sentence for his peaceful human rights activism. Sadeghi began a hunger strike shortly after his wife was arrested over the contents of an unpublished short story found in her home.
\nSadeghi finally ended his hunger strike after judicial authorities made the tiny concession of granting his wife temporary release from her pre-trial detention. It took more than 70 days for the regime to agree to even that, and, in the end, it was apparently not the likelihood of Sadeghi\u2019s imminent death that prompted them to act, but the massive outpouring of support that his protest had garnered within Iran and abroad.
\nHundreds of Iranians gathered outside of Evin Prison <\/a>, protesting his treatment. Several thousand promoted his cause on the internet and via banned social media networks.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Picture political prisoner Ali Moezzi, drawn by the American painter Mark Nelson<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

It may not be a coincidence that Moezzi disappeared from Gohardasht Prison just one day after it was announced that Sadeghi had been hospitalized and brought back from the brink of death.
\nBoth incidents demonstrated that the Iranian regime has no qualms about endangering the lives of its political adversaries, but the ruling mullahs can only take such a situation to its drastic conclusion if relatively free from public scrutiny.
\nIt is much easier for the regime to kill political prisoners, or simply allow them to die, if those deaths occur in secret locations, beneath the haze of \u201cplausible\u201d deniability.
\nThus, Moezzi\u2019s disappearance does not preclude Iran\u2019s domestic activists or the international community from saving him in much the same way they saved Sadeghi. For the time being, it is impossible to know Moezzi\u2019s current condition, much less to follow its deterioration in real time.
\nThis presents a challenge because it is more difficult to rally people around a cause that they cannot see with their own eyes. These atrocities must not be allowed to continue in the shadows.
\nThis is the challenge that must be overcome; it simply requires serious commitment, and a broad-based campaign that encompasses much more of the international community and media. World powers must take an interest in this case, and in the overall plight of Iranian prisoners of conscience.
\nThis imperative is actually underscored by the recent successes of Iran\u2019s domestic activists, particularly in the Sadeghi case.
\nIf the global community remains silent, it is sending the clear message to the Iranian regime that it can get away with such crimes with impunity. That is a message we must not condone with our silence.<\/p>\n

Safavi is a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran and president of the Near East Policy Research<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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