Urgent Action: Free Maryam Shafi’pour!

Reports indicate Islamic Republic judiciary officials continue to subject prisoner Maryam Shafi’pour to undue pressure and abuse in order to extract false confessions. 

Shafi’pour, a 26-year-old student activist is the longest prisoner in temporary detention since President Rouhani took office.  Held illegally for six months, her court session was finally conducted on Monday 3 February 2014. However, she was denied access to legal representation and her family was barred from entrance into the courtroom.

According to Judge Salavati, the head of branch 15 of the central Revolutionary Court, her sentence will be issued this week. Among charges laid against her is that of owning a satellite dish. Her family notes the dish belongs to them, not her, and that other alleged charges in her case are similarly false and vague. They added the judge disregarded her legal right to release with bail, solely based on the ground of her refusal to confess to points of interest to the Intelligence. This follows the fact that after her second arrest in October 2013, she was forced to face solitary confinement in ward 209 of the notorious Evin prison for two months three times the duration permissible by law according to Article 175 of the new Penal Code. Shafi’pour’s sister, Mona, explains the authorities have stopped visitations over the past six weeks while she is subjected to emotional and physical abuse, including beating. It should be noted Shafi’pour has been experiencing heart problems since the start of her imprisonment. Furthermore, she is suffering from severe untreated toothache the authorities deny her access to medical facilities.

According to her lawyer, Alizadeh Tabatabaie, Shafi’pour was denied access to legal counsel, charged with “spreading propaganda against the system” by Qazvin revolutionary court and sentenced to a one-year suspended prison term in 2010. In October 2013, Branch 15 of the Revolutionary Court in Tehran laid the same charges against her and subjected her to “unwarranted incarceration” until her court session this week.

In addition to illegal detention, denial of access to medical care, and facing torture and ill treatment, governmental authorities have denied her the right to education by expelling Shafi’pour from college during the eighth semester of her studies and placing her under a ban from continuing her education after studying agricultural engineering at the International University of Qazvin.

WLUML supports Amnesty International letter writing appeal, and calls on Islamic Republic authorities to observe Iran’s national codes and live up to international commitments as outlined in the International Bill of Rights and accord Shafi’pour her rights as a citizen by arranging her immediate release.

Please support this call by contacting the Iranian Embassy in your respective countries and the judicial authorities in Iran to demand Maryam Shafi’pour’s unconditional release.

Please find here the contacts of the Judiciary in Iran:

The office of Head of Judiciary (Ayatollah Sadegh Amoli Larijani):

0098-21-66407070

Extention: 220-227

The office of General Prosecutor (Hojattoleslam Mohseni Ejei)

0098-21-33917006 and 0098-21-33118575

The office of (Mohammad Javad Larijani)

0098-21-66463869