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Full
contents of the letter written by four Azerbaijani Turkic activists from
Maragha to the General Director of the Eastern Azerbaijan Judiciary
NOTE:
[The text within the square bracket are added by the translator]
In the
name of the Almighty God
The
Honourable General Director of the
Eastern Azerbaijan
Judiciary
Respectfully,
we would like to inform you of the following:
We,
Yashar Hekkakpur, Davud Ezimzadeh, Hamid Yegane-Pur and Mejid Pejuhfam are
only a few of the many citizens of Maragha arrested during our peaceful
and lawful protests in protesting to the publication of the offensive and
obnoxious cartoon in the Iran Daily Newspaper in 2006. After
spending 52 days in a detention, we were required to place equivalent of
30 million Tumens in property as bail for our temporary freedom.
Before
describing our court case and the manner in which these were perceived by
the court, we would like to provide an outline of our cultural activities
in a Non-Governmental Organisation for Children of [Southern]
Azerbaijan
and also the way we were arrested during the peak of
the protests in May 2006.
In
January 2006, we,
the authors including Mr. Elirza Heqqi, decided to establish an office as
a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) for Children of [Southern]
Azerbaijan
with the primary intentions of on cultural and social
activities. After officially licensing this NGO Foundation, the activities
commenced and within the remit of the licence, which included teaching the
Azerbaijani Turkic language to children, organising Azerbaijani
traditional concerts and arranging for educational and social excursions.
Unfortunately,
the relevant authorities, including the Department of Islamic Guidance and
Culture presumed the activities of our Foundation as suspicious and
unfavourable. Ironically, in spite of the approval of our NGO Foundation
blessed with the Certificate of Authorisation signed by the Chief of the
National Youth Organisation, they purposefully hampered its formal launch.
Thus, the Foundation was deprived of obtaining adequate facilities
including halls for concerts or for teaching theatrical arts to our youth.
Conversely, we were deprived of adequate revenues for our activities for
the benefit of the general public even though the facilities were
available. Since the establishment of our branch cultural centre called
The House of [Southern] Azerbaijani Youth in Maragha, in January
2004 until October 2005 we were faced with a systematic suppression, so
much so that the proprietor of our Foundation, who was a private
individual, unexpectedly and without any prior warning changed the locks
and by doing so confiscated all our belongings and therefore all our
lawful activities were in vain. This was an outcome of collusion between
the agents of the Ministry of Information and all the other relevant local
authorities.
Our
arrest which took place in May 2006 was a tragic episode in our lives and
hard to others to imagine the arbitrary treatments that we were subjected
to.
In
the peak of the protests, which was taking place in response to the
aforesaid offensive cartoon in various counties across the country, also
the people of Maragha staged their protests on 24 May 2006, which
culminated in a mass assembly of approx. one hundred (100,000) thousand
people. Security agents besieged a group of protesters (approx. 100
individuals) in a place adjacent to Tekhti Stadium where Haji Varjavi, the
assistant Imam Jume (the leader of the Friday Prayers) of the city was
trying to persuade the public to retreat to their places of residences.
However, the frustrated protesters were not encouraged by his preaching
and therefore there was a fear of a physical confrontation with the
security agents. At that stage, two of the under-signers (Davud Ezimzade
and Mejid Pejuhfam who are
both educationalists) had just arrived at the scene and upon the
request of Mr Varjavi and others they made public speeches and
persuaded the protesters to calm down and go back to their homes. It is
important to point out that the whole process was video recorded by
security agents copies of which must be available at the archives of the
Ministry of Information offices in Maragha.
During
protests against the published offensive cartoons by the students of the
Maragha branch of Islamic Open University Hamid Yegane-Pur, a
student of the same university, together with a number of other students
went to the office of the Dean of the university, Dr Sonboli, to ask him
to authorise the theatre hall to be used for students to gather to express
their opinions regarding the said cartoons. In stead, Dr Sonboli initially
disagreed with this demand and suggested that they should all, including
himself, sign a petition of protest to be forwarded to the authorities.
But as the students insisted and argued for a few hours, he verbally
sanctioned the students to organise an open air meeting at the university.
Resentment of the grieving Azerbaijani Turkic
students was conducive to a tense atmosphere in the university that Head
of the Security, Mr Mazlum, pleaded with Hamid Yegane-Pur, offering him
the Basijis [Basij in Persian means mobilisation and basiji-s refer to
a paramilitary state-sanctioned organisation] loudspeaker to deliver a
public speech and hopefully calm them down. All these events were
video-recorded and their films ought to be with the Department of
Information in Maragha. It is appropriate to point out that the students
were obliged by Mr Yegane-Pur`s speech, and they did indeed calm down. His
intervention succeeded in the prevention of possible violence or possible
damage, to the extent that the head of the university personally thanked
Mr. Yegane-pur.
However,
when unrest was expected during the second phase of the students
protests in a later date, the head of the university blamed Yegane-Pur for
not intervening. But in order to prove his lack of involvement, Yegane-pur
went straight to the office of the Representative of the Supreme Leader,
Haj Agha Zamani, and did not leave his side even for a moment.
Nevertheless, without Yegane-purs involvement, the protests resulted in
an increasingly tense environment, creating a pretext for security agents
to enter the university compounds and to besiege roads to intimidate and
provoke the students.
As
regards the role of Yashar Hekkak-pur in the protests, his fathers
business neighbours bear witness that during the protests in 23 and 24 May
2006, Yashar was all the time in his fathers shop and had no role in
the spontaneous protests of the masses, except on 23 May 2006 when
he had a brief moment of just watching the
demonstration in Khaje-Nesir Street without carrying any placard or
shouting slogans.
It
is of the paramount importance to note that none of us were arrested at
the protest gatherings or for being involved in carrying placards,
distributing leaflets, causing arson or causing collateral damage to
public or private properties. We were simply arrested in our homes at
around midnight or at dawn by security agents and were taken to local
office of the Ministry of Information in Maragha without producing any
warrant.
The
manner in which we were arrested is one more evidence that we suffered
arbitrary treatments. The whole episode was devoid of any legal basis in
contrast to the principles of any civilised society. In this connection,
we would like to point out the comments made by Mr. Egbali, the Public
Prosecutor of Maragha to the journalists of various newspapers, (see Issue
Number 67 of the Simayeh Maragha periodical dated 7 June 2006
and the Issue Number 1283 of Resed
periodical dated 8 June 2006).
Mr Egbali stated that in total, ten
individuals were arrested for having separatist ideas and for causing
disturbances such as vandalising public and private properties. However,
after careful considerations it became clear that five of the arrested
individuals were quite innocently mislead by the others and as they
profusely apologised for their involvement, they were released on the
condition that they would not get involved with in such activities anymore.
But the other five individuals were imprisoned after the legal procedures.
What can we say for the prosecutor who is prepared to immorally manipulate
public opinion and journalists by falsifying our cases with such
accusations against us as: leading role in the mass gatherings, supplying
and distributing statements, having criminal precedence, and discovering
illegal documents and implements during the act of arresting. We wish him
no ills but let them by the same God in whom they believe.
To
cut the long story short, the accusations brought against us all, the
under-signatories of this letter, in an arbitrary fashion included:
deceiving the people and provoking them towards feuding and murdering each
other intending to disturb the peace within the country; organising and
taking part in illegal groups intending to undermine the security of the
country, propaganda against the system of the country and provoking the
public opinion. These accusations were compiled against us and a
Lower Court
in Maragha deemed us guilty and referred our case to
the
Revolutionary Court
in Maragha.
Branch
Number 1 of the revolutionary Court in Maragha was then deemed as the
competent court to deal with our cases, registering our cases under Case
Number: 256/1/85 dated: 6 August 2006. However, during the proceedings,
this court uncovered irregularities in our cases and thus the cases were
referred back to the Lower General Court on 12 August 2006 based on
Amendment 1 of Article 14 related to Legal Codes on Forming General and
Revolutionary Court Cases conferred on 20 October 2002.
Since
this referral on 12 August 2006, we have made dozens of attempts to
request Mr. Ghayuri, the curator of the court to hasten and deal with our
cases, but all has been at no avail. Then we approached the Public
Prosecutor and finally the chief justice of the courts on the basis of
Article 12 of the above specified law but again this remained inconclusive.
Furthermore those benevolent individuals, who had bailed us out, expect
the matters to be resolved as soon as possible so that they can get the
possession of their properties back. There were also no explanations to
the delays despite our repeated chasing of our cases.
Finally,
quite accidentally, we discovered in the Office of the Ministry of
Information in Maragha has written a letter to the curator of the court (apparently
it was written on 11 November 2006) asserting that the security of Maragha
will be undermined if our cases are not harshly dealt with. The letter had
also dropped a hint that bringing a punitive outcome to our cases does not
need any evidence. Please do not think that we resorted to illegal means
to uncover the content of the letter but it was shown to us by the
Prosecutor in passing.
At
any rate, there are no definite evidence against us as at the local court
of Maragha, the final rulings will be in suspension until a conclusive
legal order has been issued by the office of the Ministry of General
Information of the
province
of
Eastern Azerbaijan
and their office in Maragha. If there were any
evidence against us related to the May 2006 mass Protests, they would have
eagerly presented it to the court. Thus our cases remain in suspension.
In
accordance with Article 42 of the Criminal law of Justice and Article 32
of the Constitution which states the authorities are obliged to deal
with legal procedures as soon as possible, also in accordance with
Article 22 of the Constitution which indicates tat All accused are
innocent until otherwise proven guilty and Article 37 of the same law
passed on 5 May 2004 which points out that authorities are not
permitted to misuse the powers entrusted upon them we respectfully
request your honour to issue the necessary orders to the Maragha Court of
Justice to respect our civil rights and deal with our cases as soon as
possible.
Clearly,
unless a fair conclusion has been reached in our cases we will have no
alternative but to forward copies of this letter to the internal news
media and other civil organisations.
Under
signed by: Hamid Yeganepur; Yashar Hekkakpur; Davud Ezimzade; Mejid
Pehufam
CC
ISNA, ILNA
The Centre for Defending the Rights of Prisoners of Conscience
Mr. Ziyai-far, The Secretary of Islamic Human Rights
Right Honourable Dr Ekber Elemi, The MP for Tebriz
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