“We will go to prison so the truth is not forgotten”

Persian2English/2011-01-08 - Your Honour, I am writing so that the truth will not be forgotten. I will write about the first moments of my detention. It was 11:45pm on March 2, 2010 when a large number of Islamic Republic security agents raided my father’s home, without any prior notice, and after searching and seizing some items, they took me away to an unknown location without [stating] any clear charges. They refused to tell my worried parents where they were taking me.

Your Honour, the procedure of arrest should be through legal notice and summons that indicate clearly what the charge is. In other words, the person who is supposed to present himself to the court should know the reason for being summoned. Moreover, the defendant should [have the option to] be accompanied by his/her lawyer.

Article 32 of the Islamic Republic Constitution states that “no one can be arrested unless in a manner and order that the law prescribes. In the case of detention, the charges should be communicated in written form to the defendant immediately. The preliminary case should be sent to qualified judicial authorities within a maximum of 24 hours, and the preparations for a speedy trial should be set in motion as quickly as possible.”

Raiding people’s homes in the middle of the night, harassing their families, and taking away an individual on unclear charges is in violation of the laws stated in the Islamic Republic Constitution, in violation of the articles in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (which the Islamic Republic has a commitment to uphold), and inconsistent to religious jurisprudence sources.

Your Honour, during my detention, I spent a night in a solitary confinement cell in an undisclosed detention centre in Isfahan. The next day I was transferred to solitary confinement in ward 2A of Tehran’s Evin prison where I was held until March 24, 2010. [Translator's Note: Ward 2-A is controlled by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps]

Detaining the defendant before the trial or on cautious grounds results in suffering for both the defendant and his/her family and causes them mental and psychological harm as well as financial losses. It will adversely impact the defendant’s perception of the judges and the legal process. It is surprising and even regrettable that the judge, while ordering the defendant to be remanded, tires to justify his actions by finding the defendant guilty without paying attention to his/her rights and defense. Nevertheless, according to the law, everyone is innocent until proven guilty by a qualified court and the rule of law. No punishment is legal unless it is handed down by a qualified and eligible court [that follows] the rule of law. Is it so possible now that a defendant is found guilty [before the trial] and he or she is ordered to be remanded?

Interestingly, my charges were not communicated to me within 24 hours after my arrest [as the law requires], but four days later. During those four days I was blindfolded, interrogated, insulted…and the charges were determined from the content of those interrogations.

Section 6 of the law on “Respect for Legitimate Freedoms and Protection of Civil Rights” states: “In the course of arrest, detention, interrogation, or investigation, harassing individuals through blindfolding or tying up body parts, insulting and belittling them should be avoided.”

Your Honour, the person who is not clearly charged with an offence cannot be held in detention without first communicating to him or her the charges and holding a trial. Even if we go to the pre-Islamic era in Arabia, the defendant was entitled to certain rights and would not be detained and condemned without any evidence. Moreover, just because oppression and wrongdoings has become common practice, it does not mean that the wrong is justified. Such actions are fundamentally objectionable. Punishment cannot be imposed on an individual whose guilt has not yet been proven.

Solitary confinement against defendants is oppressive and a form of torture. The law forbids any form of torture against the defendant. A defendant is an individual whose guilt is not proven yet, so (s)he cannot be punished, let alone be tortured.

Is solitary confinement torture? Your Honour, it is torture, harrassment, and abuse in addition to a form of punishment before the crime is proven. Solitary confinement is an unjust and oppressive treatment [of prisoners]. In other words, even if someone is found guilty, the punishment of solitary confinement should never be imposed on him/her. However, you witnessed I was held in solitary confinement even before my charges were communicated to me. If someone is sentenced to prison, they sent him/her to the general ward. However, I, as a defendant and not a convicted individual, was held in solitary confinement for nearly one month.

Your Honour, in religious jurisprudence sources, it has been repeatedly stated that the heart of the actions of rulers who illegally punish their critics and dissidents is protection of interests and power-mongering and not administrating justice.

Judge PirAbassi of branch 26 of the Revolutionary Court, I have the following to say about the thick case file belonging to me that you will use to make a ruling:

Most of the contents of the case have been extracted by interrogators from me through erosive and exhaustive interrogations and during my stay in solitary confinement.

Your Honour, in political offences and crimes of conscience, the court and the jury have to decide whether a wrongdoing has taken place. The jury and the court cannot even decide on its own in the absence of the defendant by citing solely what the interrogator has written, for it is possible all the statements have been made under duress and pressures during the interrogations.

If the defendant is interrogated while tired, sleepy, hungry, and ill, his responses could not be the basis of a humane and legitimate ruling. It is unacceptable to extract any reluctant and forced confession from somebody. Not a single religious jurisprudent has approved of such acts nor made a single exception. Not a single one has stated that, for example, in the case of such crimes or even murder it is allowed to torture the defendant. Nor have different types of tortures been classified so that a certain limit of torture be allowed. No torture is acceptable according to religious jurisprudence sources.

Your Honour, please keep in mind the circumstances that the statements made in the case were extracted under. Please also consider the fact that the cases before you will be opened in the future of Iran and tomorrow’s Iran shall scrutinize the ruling you have made.

Pressures exerted by bodies such as the Cultural Revolution Council and the Ministry of Advanced Education (which is [supposed to be] accountable for banned students) on the Iranian regime’s dissidents and critics of the ruling establishment…it has to be stated that the government and the ruling system have no rights and no government system has an identity separate from the people it rules. The ruling system is a structure determined and defined by the people. The ruling structure cannot stand against a nation and a group of people.

If [during the court the Judge] claims that I am anti-regime, I will say that I have always considered myself a critic of the regime. People always have the right to criticize the ruling establishment. Challenging rulers is not a criminal [act], whether from a legal or religious point of view. The basis of all government systems is humane [and not divine], and human beings have defined various governmental structures based on their experience and reasoning. As we evolve, these structures change and have no inherent religious importance. So, the [claim to divinity ]cannot be used as a pretext to accuse and try dissidents. Opposition and criticism by individuals and groups [belonging to] a political structure is not considered an offence, and religions do not consider it a crime either.

Judge PirAbassi, I told you in the courtroom, and I repeat it once again: No matter your ruling, I shall stay in Iran. I, Navid Khanjani, will seek to restore my violated rights inside Iran and not beyond the [international] borders. At the end one phrase sums up my discourse:

“There was a time when they died to keep the truth alive, and today, if need be, we will go to prison so that the truth is not forgotten and imprisoned.”