<\/p>\n
Mohammad Najafi<\/strong>\u00a0is an Iranian lawyer who defended many political prisoners.<\/p>\n In January 2018, he informed the media about the case of Vahid Heydari, a man who died during his detention at the Arak prison after having been arrested during protests on December 31st<\/sup>, 2017. Authorities then evoked a suicide \u2013 as in the case of Kavous Seyed-Emami (a Canadian environmental activist) and Sina Ghanbari, both died in detention. Mohammad Najafi went to Shazand and led his own investigations; he then published his conclusions (that Heydari was killed by State agents) on Instagram.<\/p>\n Following these events, Mohammad Najafi was arrested, and was not released before April 17th<\/sup>\u00a02018<\/strong>. He had to pay a 1 million Iranian Tomans bail (approximately 237\u00a0000 $). In May, Najafi reported to the Iranian Center for Human Rights that a member of the Revolutionary Guards had explicitly told him that authorities would paralyze him by constantly prosecuting and detaining him.<\/p>\n In October 2018, Mohammad Najafi was arrested again and put in detention.\u00a0<\/strong>He was condemned to 3 years of imprisonment and 74 lashes for \u201cdisturbing the State\u201d and \u201cpublishing lies\u201d.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Despite Judge Abdollahi\u2019s press statements (confirming Najafi\u2019s conviction), no proof was given that the lawyer had effectively worked \u201cwith opponents to the State and enemies of the Iranian people\u201d, as he was accused of.<\/p>\n The crackdown then intensified:\u00a0Mohammad Najafi was condemned on December 11th<\/sup>, 2018 to 13 additional years of imprisonment<\/strong>\u00a0(10 years for \u201ccollaborating with enemy States through transfer of information\u201d, 2 years for \u201cpropaganda against the State\u201d, and 1 year for \u201cinsult to the Supreme leader\u201d).<\/p>\n A few days later (December 15th<\/sup>),\u00a0Mohammad Najafi was again condemned to 1 year of imprisonment by the Revolutionary Court of Shazand<\/strong>\u00a0for \u201cpublishing lies on Internet (\u2026) with the intent of disturbing the public opinion\u201d. What was targeted was a letter published by the lawyer on Facebook, in which he criticized the Supreme leader Ali Khamenei.<\/p>\n According to his lawyer, the charges on which the sentences are based make it very unlikely for Najafi to be granted an early release. Indeed, according to Article 134 of the Iranian Criminal procedure code, when a person is convicted of more than 3 charges, the judge has the possibility to exceed the maximum sentence set for each charge. It is the same mechanism that allowed judges to condemn\u00a0Nasrin Sotoudeh\u00a0to an extremely heavy sentence.<\/p>\n On April 1st<\/sup>, 2019, just 4 days after his release from the Arak prison, Mohammad Najafi was arrested again.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The OIAD<\/strong>\u00a0firmly condemns the crackdown suffered by Mohammad Najafi and calls on Iranian authorities to release him immediately and without conditions, as for Nasrin Sotoudeh,\u00a0Amir Salar Davoodi\u00a0and all the Iranian lawyers who are prosecuted or imprisoned due to the legitimate exercise of their profession.<\/p>\n The OIAD<\/strong>\u00a0furthermore demands that Iranian authorities respect the fundamental principles of the rights of the defense, and consequently that they withdraw the\u00a0list of 20 State-approved lawyers\u00a0to whom persons accused of crimes against the national security must resort to.<\/p>\n Iranian authorities are also expected to comply with the United Nations\u2019\u00a0Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers<\/strong>\u00a0(1990), which state that \u201cGovernments shall ensure that lawyers (a) are able to perform all of their professional functions without intimidation, hindrance, harassment or improper interference; (b) are able to travel and to consult with their clients freely both within their own country and abroad; and (c) shall not suffer, or be threatened with, prosecution or administrative, economic or other sanctions for any action taken in accordance with recognized professional duties, standards and ethics<\/em>\u201d (Principle n\u00b0 16).<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Who are we?<\/strong><\/p>\n The International Observatory for Lawyers in Danger was created by the National Bar Council (France),\u00a0 the\u00a0 Paris\u00a0 Bar\u00a0 (France),\u00a0 the\u00a0 Consejo\u00a0 General\u00a0 de\u00a0 la\u00a0 Abogac\u00eda\u00a0 Espanola\u00a0 (Spain),\u00a0 and the Consiglio\u00a0 Nazionale\u00a0 Forense\u00a0 (Italy).\u00a0 Its\u00a0 goal\u00a0 is\u00a0 to\u00a0 conduct\u00a0 a\u00a0 constant\u00a0 monitoring\u00a0 on lawyers\u00a0 facing\u00a0 threats\u00a0 around\u00a0 the\u00a0 world\u00a0 because\u00a0 they lawfully practice their\u00a0 profession\u00a0 and to\u00a0 provide assistance to attorneys whose lives, freedom or practice are threatened.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"listing_category":[61],"event_category":[],"service_category":[],"rental_category":[],"classifieds_category":[],"listing_feature":[],"region":[89,1935],"class_list":["post-10319","listing","type-listing","status-publish","hentry","listing_category-imprisoned","region-asia-en","region-iran-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/protect-lawyers.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/listing\/10319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/protect-lawyers.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/listing"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/protect-lawyers.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/listing"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/protect-lawyers.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/protect-lawyers.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10319"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/protect-lawyers.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/listing\/10319\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21731,"href":"https:\/\/protect-lawyers.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/listing\/10319\/revisions\/21731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/protect-lawyers.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"listing_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/protect-lawyers.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/listing_category?post=10319"},{"taxonomy":"event_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/protect-lawyers.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/event_category?post=10319"},{"taxonomy":"service_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/protect-lawyers.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/service_category?post=10319"},{"taxonomy":"rental_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/protect-lawyers.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rental_category?post=10319"},{"taxonomy":"classifieds_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/protect-lawyers.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/classifieds_category?post=10319"},{"taxonomy":"listing_feature","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/protect-lawyers.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/listing_feature?post=10319"},{"taxonomy":"region","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/protect-lawyers.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/region?post=10319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}