Source: Human Rights Watch
Parliamentary Panel Finds Former Prosecutor With
History of Rights Abuse Responsible
(Washington DC, January 13, 2009) - The human rights crimes of a
high-ranking judicial official in Iran go far beyond the scope of the
parliamentary panel that investigated his role in the abuse of detainees
following the June 2009 presidential election, Human Rights Watch said today.
Human Rights Watch urged the Iranian judiciary to remove the official, Saeed
Mortazavi, from his post as deputy prosecutor general and to set up an
independent commission to investigate his role, and the roles of other high
officials, in violations going at least as far back as 2000.
On January 10, 2010, a parliamentary panel investigating detentions after
the disputed presidential election determined that Mortazavi was directly
responsible for the ill-treatment of detainees in Kahrizak Prison, outside of
Tehran, and for the deaths of three detainees there.
"Saeed Mortazavi is a serial human rights abuser and the parliamentary panel
showed courage in naming him," said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East and North
Africa director at Human Rights Watch. "His unsavory history goes back many
years. The Iranian parliamentary panel should expand its inquiry to include
Mortazavi's past abuses as well."
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Saeed Mortazavi |
The parliament set up the Special Parliamentary Committee to Investigate
the Status of Post-Election Arrestees in July to investigate allegations of
torture and abuse of detainees arrested in the post-election crackdown. The
panel's report says that Mortazavi claimed that his decision to send detainees
to Kahrizak stemmed from a lack of space at Evin Prison, in northern Tehran. But
authorities at Evin told the panel that their prison had been ready to accept
the prisoners. The panel concluded that Mortazavi's decision to transfer
protestors to Kahrizak was "not justifiable even if Evin did not have the
capacity" to take them.
The panel found that abuse of prisoners in Kahrizak included beatings; verbal
abuse and humiliation; lack of appropriate food and drink; lack of ventilation;
and severe overcrowding. It held Mortazavi responsible for the deaths of three
detainees: Mohsen Ruhal Amini, Amir
Javadifar, and Mohammed Kamrani.
Conditions at Kahrizak Prison had led the judiciary to order it closed more than
two years ago, but it remained open until July. On July 27, following Amini's
death, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei again ordered it closed. Hamid Reza Katouzian,
a member of parliament from Tehran who served on an earlier official
fact-finding committee looking into attacks on Tehran University dormitories
after the election, said in early August that Esameel Ahmadi Moghaddam, chief of
Iran's national police, received daily reports about the Kahrizak prison and
thus shared responsibility for what happened there.
"There is reason to believe that others share responsibility with Mortazavi for
the terrible things that happened in Kahrizak," Stork said.
In addition to his role in sending detainees to Kahrizak, Mortazavi was in
charge of investigating detained reformist leaders and party officials in the
aftermath of the
disputed election.
In April 2000, Mortazavi, then a judge of the Public Court Branch 1410, led a
campaign to silence dissent by ordering the closure of more than 100 newspapers
and journals. In June 2003, the Iranian-Canadian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi
died while in the custody of judiciary and security officers presided over by
Mortazavi. Lawyers for her family have alleged that her body showed signs of
torture, including blows to the head, and that Mortazavi participated directly
in her interrogation.
In 2004, Mortazavi organized the arbitrary detention of more than 20 bloggers
and journalists, holding them in secret prisons. Human Rights Watch found that
Mortazavi was directly implicated in abuses of these detainees, including
holding them in lengthy solitary confinement and coercing them to sign false
confessions, some of them televised.
For more information on abuses at Kahrizak, please visit:
For more information on Mortazavi, please visit:
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