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Iran-HRM – Peaceful prisoners of conscience Mohammad Hossein Sepehri and Kamal Yazdi were beaten on JUne 20 and 21 by prison authorities.
Fatemeh Sepehri, the sister of Mohammad Hossein Sepehri published a video announcing the beating of the activists while they have been on hunger strike since one month ago to protest being denied phone calls.
The two dissidents who are imprisoned in Vakilabad Prison of Mashhad after signing an open letter calling on Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to resign, have been denied phone calls since March 31.
Fatemeh Sepehri said: “I went to see my brother today, June 23. They had been on a hunger strike with Mr. Kamal Jafari since May 22, because (authorities) have cut off their phone calls since March 31.”
Fatemeh Sepehri explained that Ali Tibaji the warden of section 1 and 6 of the prison beat the jailed activists.
Mohammad Hossein Sepehri and Kamal Yazdi were among 14 peaceful political and civil rights activists who signed a letter in June 2019 criticizing Khamenei’s leadership of the country and demanding he step down.
They were all arrested in the weeks following the publication of their letter and several are still in prison.
On February 2, 2020, Judge Hadi Mansouri of Branch 4 of the Revolutionary Court in Mashhad, Khorasan Razavi Province, sentenced eight of the activists to prison terms ranging from 1-26 years on the charges of “forming an illegal organization” against the country’s security and “propaganda against the state.” Mohammad Hossein Sepehri, received a six-year prison sentence.
The letter said in part, “The time has come for the people, thinkers, and caring individuals to lead a national movement by setting aside conciliatory tendencies that have facilitated the destruction of our culture, civilization and national wealth and with all honesty step into the ring and demand fundamental changes to the Constitution and the resignation of the Leader who is unjustly extending his authority on a daily basis.”
It added: “There is not only a lack of will to be accountable to the Iranian people, but actually an insistence by the ruling regime to remain irreformable and wrongful under a singular dictatorship.”
Some of the signatories posted videos on social media explaining why they hoped for a different form of government.
In one video message, teacher Mohammad Hossein Sepehri said, “If the regime shows tolerance toward us for signing this letter, it would be respecting our rights as citizens. But if it mistreats us, it would prove that the Ruler wants to enslave the people.”
On August 11, two months after he signed the letter, Kamal Jafari Yazdi’s 13-year prison sentence was upheld by the Appeals Court. He had been charged with “assembly and collusion against national security,” “propaganda against the state,” “contact with anti-state organizations” and “insulting the Supreme Leader.”
Yazdi, who is a veteran of the Iran-Iraq War (1980-88), has to serve at least 10 years behind bars to become eligible for parole.
