Human Rights Watch called on the Iranian authorities to
immediately release the eight environmental activists arrested and imprisoned
eight months ago without charges or evidence to justify their continued
detention.
“Iran’s judiciary is again highlighting its role as key
functionaries in a repressive state machinery rather than defenders of justice,"
said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights
Watch, referring to the case of Iranian environmental activists arrested eight
months ago, adding that Iran’s authorities “have still not come up with a
criminal charge against them.”
“Iran’s leaders need to search no further for a source of
simmering societal anger against them,” asserted Whitson, referring to “the
judiciary’s despicable treatment of peaceful activists who are only trying to
mitigate the country’s many serious problems, including environmental crises.”
According to an anonymous source who spoke to Human Rights Watch,
the prosecutor's office said the detained environmental activists are accused
of “sowing corruption on earth”, a charge that could bring the death penalty.
The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps had previously arrested
eight environmental rights activists from the Persian Wildlife Heritage
Foundation on January 24.
"The detainees are accused of using environmental
projects as a cover to collect strategic intelligence," said Abbas Jafari
Dolatabadi, Tehran's public prosecutor, a month after their arrest. So far, the
Iranian authorities have not provided any information as to what “strategic
intelligence” these individuals collected.
Among the detainees was Kavous Seyed Emami, a
Canadian-Iranian university professor who died in prison under unknown
circumstances. The Iranian authorities claimed he had committed suicide in
detention, but there has been no impartial investigation. His wife was also
threatened by the authorities not to talk about her husband's death to the
media, and she has been banned from traveling.
Emami was the managing director of the Persian Wildlife
Heritage Foundation, which seeks to protect rare Iranian plants and animals.
Iran faces a number of environmental crises, including water
scarcity, air pollution and illegal fishing. Human rights groups say civil
society activists in Iran face the risk of arbitrary arrest and harassment by
authorities.
