(NCRI) and (PMOI / MEK Iran): Statement by 24 Members of the European Parliament on Human Rights in Iran Calling for the Immediate Release of Political Prisoner Saeid Sangar.
Twenty-four members of the European Parliament cosigned a statement on the initiative of the European Parliament’s Friends of a Free Iran (FoFI) about the alarming human rights situation in Iran, following a recent surge of executions and mass arrests across the country since December 2020. The following is the Press release and the full statement signed by the European Parliamentarians.
Press Release
Twenty-four members of the European Parliament cosigned a statement on the initiative of the European Parliament’s Friends of a Free Iran (FoFI) about the alarming human rights situation in Iran, following a recent surge of executions and mass arrests across the country since December 2020.
“One such urgent case is the case of political prisoner Saeid Sangar from the city of Piranshahr. The Iranian Judiciary recently sentenced him to another 11 months in prison in Urmia after he finished serving his 20-year prison sentence for supporting the Iranian pro-democracy opposition, the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (PMOI / MEK Iran), without any temporary release.”
(NCRI) and (PMOI / MEK Iran): The lives of prisoners, particularly political prisoners are in danger amid the coronavirus crisis in Iran.
Targeting political prisoners
“The authorities are now particularly targeting political prisoners and those arrested in connection with the nationwide protests in November 2019 subjecting them to severe torture and other ill-treatment in prisons including floggings, mock executions, waterboarding, and sexual violence and denying them life-saving medical care.”
“Instead of investigating allegations of enforced disappearance, torture, and other ill-treatment and other crimes against detainees, Iranian prosecutors became complicit in the campaign of repression by bringing national security charges against hundreds of people solely for exercising their rights to freedom of expression, association, and peaceful assembly, while judges doled out guilty verdicts on the basis of torture-tainted ‘confessions’.”
(NCRI) and (PMOI / MEK Iran): Some of the publicly known political prisoners, now serving in Iranian regime prisons.
1988 massacre
“Iran’s Judiciary led by Ebrahim Raisi, known for his role in the massacre of thousands of political prisoners in 1988, is responsible for these atrocities and cannot be expected to hold the perpetrators to account.”
The MEPs who co-signed the statement called on the EU Foreign Policy Chief, Josep Borrell, and the EU members’ states and their Foreign Ministers to:
- demand the immediate release of Mr. Saied Sangar, as well as other political prisoners and those detained in connection to popular protests in Iran;
- send a delegation to Iran to visit the prisons, meet and talk with political prisoners and detained protesters;
- make any relations with Iran and the regime contingent upon full respect for human rights in Iran;
- use the Human Rights Sanctions Mechanism, known as the Magnitsky Act, to impose targeted measures against Iranian officials, who have committed serious human rights violations, as demanded by the European Parliament resolutions on Iran in the last two years, including Ebrahim Raisi, and his predecessor, Sadeq Larijani.
(NCRI) and (PMOI / MEK Iran): A monument made in memory of 30,000 political prisoners, who were brutally executed in the summer of 1988, mainly supporters of the MEK.
Amnesty International
According to Amnesty International, “instead of investigating allegations of enforced disappearance, torture, and other ill-treatment and other crimes against detainees, Iranian prosecutors became complicit in the campaign of repression by bringing national security charges against hundreds of people solely for exercising their rights to freedom of expression, association, and peaceful assembly, while judges doled out guilty verdicts on the basis of torture-tainted ‘confessions’.”
The Iranian Judiciary recently sentenced Mr. Saied Sangar to another 11 months in prison in Urmia after he finished serving his 20year prison sentence for supporting the Iranian pro-democracy opposition, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI / MEK Iran), without any temporary release.
Mr. Saied Sangar is now 47 years old but has been in prison since 2000 when he was sentenced to18 years on the spurious charge of “moharebeh” (waging war against God).In Iran, opposition to the regime is tantamount to opposition to God.
(NCRI) and (PMOI / MEK Iran): “Death Commission’s procedure during the 1988 massacre”.
The abridged version of an article written by Mohammad Sadat Khansari for the NCRI.
and People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran – MEK IRAN – YouTube