Iran: Conditional release of Abdolfattah Soltani!

The Observatory has been informed by the League for the Defence of Human Rights in Iran (LDDHI) about the conditional release of Mr. Abdolfattah Soltani, lawyer and founding member of the Defenders of Human Rights Centre (DHRC).

According to the information received, on November 21, 2018, Branch 54 of the Tehran Appeals Court, upon the approval of the Tehran Prosecutor, granted Mr. Abdolfattah Soltani conditional parole and release [1] after serving more than half of his 13-year prison sentence [2]. Following an unfair trial, on June 13, 2012, Mr. Soltani had been sentenced to 13 years of imprisonment on various charges, including “propaganda against the system” and “assembly and collusion against national security” [3] (see background information below). Mr. Soltani served more than seven years in Tehran’s Evin prison at the date of his conditional release.

The Observatory recalls that Mr. Abdolfattah Soltani 13-year sentence was commuted to 10 years under Article 134 of the 2013 Islamic Penal Code, and his 10-year ban on practising law reduced to two years.

A previous parole request had been denied on July 8, 2018. On August 4, 2018, Mr. Soltani was given an 85-day leave from prison to attend the funeral of his 27-year-old daughter, Homa Soltani. He went back to prison on October 28, 2018.

Mr. Soltani has repeatedly gone on hunger strike to protest against his prison conditions and demand his immediate and unconditional release. On March 26, 2018, he suspended his last hunger strike - undertaken five days earlier - at the request of thousands of civil society activists who were concerned for his life.

Responding to a petition from the Observatory, in February 2013, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) declared the detention of Mr. Soltani’s “arbitrary” and was linked to his work as a human rights defender. The WGAD called on the Iranian Government to release him immediately [4].

The Observatory welcomes the conditional release of Mr. Abdolfattah Soltani, thanks all individuals, organisations, and institutions who intervened in his favour, but recalls that he should have never been detained in the first place. The Observatory remains deeply concerned about Mr. Soltani’s situation, and calls on the Iranian authorities to lift immediately and unconditionally the ban on Mr. Soltani’s practice of his profession and to end all acts of harassment, including at the judicial level, against him and all human rights defenders in Iran.

Background information:

On September 10, 2011, Mr. Abdolfattah Soltani was arrested outside the Islamic Revolution Court in Tehran by police officers who had an arrest warrant for him. In the afternoon, his house and offices were also searched by four agents who seized CDs, papers, documents and his children’s laptop without warrant [5]. Mr. Soltani was held in solitary confinement at the Ministry of Intelligence’s Section 209 inside Tehran’s Evin prison.

On March 4, 2012, the lawyers of Mr. Soltani were informed that the Islamic Revolution Court (Branch 26) had condemned him to 18 years’ imprisonment in “internal exile” and a 20-year ban on practising law on charges of “propaganda against the system”, “assembly and collusion against national security”, as well as “earning illegitimate assets” as a laureate of the Nuremberg City Human Rights prize in 2009.

On June 10, 2012, the relatives of Mr. Soltani were informed that Branch 54 of the Tehran’s Appeals Court had reduced Mr. Soltani’s prison sentence to 13 years’ imprisonment in “internal exile” in the remote city of Borazjan (southern Bushehr Province) and reduced the ban on practising law to 10 years. The imprisonment in exile was contrary to Iranian laws as the latter do not provide for this type of sentence. The laws provide either for “imprisonment” or for “exile” in another part of the country. In addition, the exile to Borazjan prison made family visits extremely difficult, as Mr. Soltanis’ relatives had to travel hundreds of kilometres back and forth every time for a short visit. The authorities decided later not to carry out the “internal exile” part of the sentence.

The sentence was later reduced to 10 years under Article 134 of the 2013 Islamic Penal Code, which provides that if a prisoner is sentenced to several prison terms on different charges, he would serve only the highest sentence. In this case, the highest sentence was 10 years.

Prior to the issuing of the sentence on appeal, interrogators of the Ministry of Intelligence had reportedly pressured Mr. Soltani into incriminating himself and the DHRC in exchange for leniency, including the cancellation of the sentence of internal exile, which he refused.