The Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran on October 25th issued a statement saying that the clerical regime's criminal prosecutor indicted five environmental activists who were arrested nine months ago by the Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Intelligence, with charges of "corruption on earth," indicating that their files are ready to be submitted to the court. (IRGC News Agency – October 21). This is despite the fact that the regime’s judiciary had previously charged them with spying.
In another development, an attorney and environmental activist, Farshid Hakki, was killed suspiciously on October 17 near his house in Tehran's Faiz Garden, and his body was burnt down. A few days after the widespread posting of this news on social networks, IRGC media such as Tasnim quoted coroner’s office that the cause of his death was self-immolation. Attorney General Dowlatabadi announced on October 23 in Tehran that given the transfer of the corpse to the coroner and performing autopsy, no signs of beating or suspicious signs were found.
Subsequently, the coroner dismissed the claims and said that there was no comment on this case, and … any kind of finding and the cause of death would be announced by the judge of the case (ILNA News Agency – October 23).
A number of activists and environmental experts were arrested by the IRGC Intelligence on January 24, 2018. One of them, Dr. Kavous Seyed Emami, 64, a university professor and former director of the Wildlife Agency, died two weeks after being arrested under the torture in Evin Prison, but the regime foolishly claimed that he had committed suicide.
Following the uprising of the Iranian people, at least 14 of the detainees of the uprising were killed under torture. But the regime had declared the cause of death as "suicide" or "unavailability of drugs" or "extensive use of narcotics". Mullah Hassan Nowroozi, a spokesman for the Legal and Judicial Committee of the Iranian parliament, said in a vulgar comment: "They were contemptuous of what they had done and died due to sorrow, or committed suicide after realizing the heinousness of their work."
The claim was so scandalous that the head of the parliamentary environmental faction, Mohammad Reza Tabesh, said: "The arrest of a number of environmental activists … is suspicious and the death of Dr. Seyyed Emami in the prison is unfortunate and increases the ambiguity regarding the charges against the detainees".
The clerical regime, unable to deal with the uprising and popular protests, has resorted to suspicious killings inside the country, widespread arrests, fabricating cases for prisoners and eliminating them, along with intensifying terrorist plots abroad.
The Iranian resistance warns against the continuation and intensification of these crimes against humanity and calls on all international human rights organizations to strongly condemn these crimes, and by adopting binding measures, not to allow the clerical regime to continue such crimes. Establishing an international delegation to investigate the status of prisons and prisoners, in particular, political prisoners and suspected murders is more than ever necessary.
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
October 25, 2018
