Jail Sentence for Four Azerbaijani Lawyers
Since the beginning of the Iranian people’s protests in September 2022, nearly fifty lawyers have been arrested across Iran, or security cases were filed against them, and they have been sentenced to prison. Among them are four Azerbaijani lawyers, Sina Yousefi, Negin Kiani, Qasem Bo’di, and Amir Mehdipour. They were targeted by Tabriz security forces just because they announced their readiness to defend the arrested protesters.
Sina Yousefi is a senior attorney-at-law, an expert in international law, and the vice-chairman of the Human Rights Commission of the East Azerbaijan Bar Association. He angered government officials because of his proposal to form a committee to defend detainees. In October, Mr. Yousefi and his colleague Qasem Bo’di were arrested in Tabriz city and sentenced to prison on charges of “forming an illegal group” and “propaganda against the state.”
In November, the security authorities arrested two other East Azerbaijan Bar Association members, Negin Kiani and Amir Mehdipour, another member of the Association’s Human Rights Commission. A case was filed against them.
The “crime” of these honorable lawyers was only performing their professional and conscientious duty. Sina Yousefi wrote in a Twitter message on December 19, 2022, “The volume of referrals to colleagues’ offices and the lawyers’ association to accept the representation of those arrested during the protests was so high that we decided to form a “defense committee” at the Human Rights Commission. But now, for performing this professional duty and adhering to the lawyer’s oath, I am faced with another charge, conspiracy to form an illegal group.”
After enduring several days of solitary confinement, these four lawyers were sentenced to months in prison, banned from practicing law, leaving the country, and their electronic devices confiscated. At the same time as these rulings, East Azerbaijan’s security and judicial forces, by preparing a list of other protesting lawyers, whose number is more than a hundred, forced the East Azerbaijan Police Department to revoke the opposing lawyers’ licenses. For this reason, recently, the police prosecutor of the Bar Association, Mr. Omid Rahnamai-e Sediq Azar, resigned from his position. His successor sent a threatening text message saying he would harshly deal with the bar association’s lawyers.
According to the existing laws, including Choice of a Lawyer by Litigants, approved on October 3, 1991, by the Expediency Discernment Council of the State, a defense lawyer has the respect and guarantees of judicial professionals. As in international laws, including the Havana Declaration of 1990, a lawyer is immune from any punitive treatment in the capacity of defense.
These four lawyers have not committed any crime. They are victims of the revenge of the security institutions against the protesters. We, the signatories of this petition, request the cancellation of the verdicts of Sina Yousefi, Negin Kayani, Qasim Boadi, and Amir Mehdipour so that they can resume their professional work.
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Province Number of signatures East Azerbaijan 0 West Azerbaijan 1 Ardabil 0 Isfahan 0 Alborz 0 Ilam 0 Bushehr 0 Tehran 0 Chahar Mahaal and Bakhtiari 0 South Khoresan 0 Razavi Khoresan 0 North Khoresan 0 Khuzestan 0 Zanjan 0 Samnan 0 Sistan and Baluchestan 0 Fars 0 Qazvin 0 Qom 0 Kurdistan 0 Kerman 0 Kermanshah 0 Kohgiluyehv And Boyer Ahmad 0 Golestan 0 Gilan 0 Lorestan 0 Mazandaran 0 Markazi 0 Hormozgan 0 Hamadan 0 Yazd 0 -
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