THE IRANIAN lawyer who was forced to find refuge in Norway last year after he publicised the case of the Iranian woman condemned to death by stoning has urged Ireland to lobby EU states to take a tougher line with the Tehran regime.
Current sanctions by the US and EU are “hurting ordinary people rather than those in power” in Iran, Mohammed Mostafaei said in Galway at the weekend
Mostafaei is in Ireland to give the Scholars at Risk public lecture in Trinity College Dublin tonight to mark World Day against the Death Penalty. He is also undertaking a lecture tour as a guest of Amnesty International.
One of Iran’s best-known human rights lawyers, Mostafaei has defended many prisoners facing the death penalty, including 43-year-old Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtianai, who was sentenced to 99 lashes and then to death by stoning, for adultery.
He has represented the cases of 40 juvenile offenders in the past few years, and was able to save 18 of them from execution.
Ashtianai’s life was spared last year after Mostafaei wrote about her case on his blog and gave interviews to western news organisations. However, he was forced to flee from Iran to Norway, after he was taken for questioning.
His wife and his brother-in-law were detained and a warrant was issued for his arrest. His wife was subsequently released from solitary confinement in Evin prison, and she and the couple’s seven-year-old daughter were reunited with Mostafaei in Oslo.
If countries refused to buy oil from Iran, the government would be unable to pay the groups that are keeping it in power, he said.
US sanctions may ban purchasing oil directly from Iran, but it may be trading indirectly through Turkey, he said.
The fact that there are seven million Iranians living abroad from a country that is so rich in natural resources speaks volumes, he said.
Last week, Reuters reported the EU was set to consider as imposing sanctions against more Iranian individuals.
However, this month the EU lifted travel bans on Iranian foreign minister Ali Akbar Salehi, nuclear chief Fereidoun Abbasi-Davani and oil minister Rostam Ghasemi. Salehi was a former head of Iran’s atomic energy organisation.
“One has to ask why these travel bans have been lifted by the EU, even temporarily,” he said.
Mostafaei said “Arab spring” movements in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia learned much from the Iranian unrest after the 2009 elections, when millions took to the streets.
“These were peaceful demonstrations against electoral fraud, but people suffered and it didn’t work,” he said.
“The demonstrators in the Arab Spring movements knew they would have to stay on the streets to get rid of dictators.” Illegal arrest, torture and killings were rife in Iran, with moharbeh or “enemy of god” deemed a capital crime, he said.
Members of the Bahai faith are barred from holding posts in higher education or government in Shia Muslim Iran, and have been persecuted. Seven Bahai community leaders are serving life sentences in prison. Lawyers and journalists have been imprisoned, and there are considerable restrictions on press freedom and internet access, he pointed out.
Even protests over environmental issues, such as the draining of lake Oroumieh in northwest Iran due to mismanagement, had resulted in a government crackdown.
Amnesty International has highlighted the case of activist and journalist Faranak Farid (50), who was reportedly beaten severely after her arrest on September 3rd over Oroumieh protests in the north-western city of Tabriz.
More details of the programme can be found at .amnesty.ie/ news
