Interview with Seyyed Mohammad Reza Faghihi

Interview with Seyyed Mohammad Reza Faghihi the lawyer of Trial about the dossier of Ebrahim Jafarzadeh, Azerbaijan national movement political activist by OyrenciNews

    First, please introduce yourself and please describe how did you accept to act as a lawyer for   Mr . Ebrahim Jafarzadeh

Answer) I am Seyyed Mohammad Reza Faghihi board of trustees member and substituting member in board of directors in the society of prisoners rights defense as well as the secretary of law committee in the mentioned society, I am also lawyer of trial. Since 3 years ago I act as a lawyer for free for those who have asked help to the society.  
 
What is your view about the condition of arresting your client, as well as the condition of trial and also ordered issue by the court.

Answer) what which is noteworthy is the thing that, his arrestment was in one of streets in Khoy without doing any criminal action; It means that while he was not doing any speech, slogans or without carrying any placards or participation in the protests and … has been arrested with the presumption that he wants to do some thing. His actions in previous years and some articles collected from the internet in his computer are the most important reasons to introduce him as an autonomous. Since there is no documentary for accusation they have tried to fill the exist lack with the reports of security and intelligence organizations.

 
Who is the suer in this case and please describe the role of intelligence service office please.
Answer) In-spite of individual cases which suer is a person, in this case the suer must be public

prosecutor. The public prosecutor sues as representative of the public in advantage of public. To describe the role of intelligence service office it is noteworthy to say that since the intelligence service office introduces itself as the responsible organization for public security, it is the arresting authority.

 Please express the entirety of the order and what is your opinion about the issued order  

Answer) One year imprisoning, banishing to Borazjan for 2 years as well as privation of political and social activities for 3 years is the issued order.  
Unfortunately, similar orders have been issued in other Turkish speaking cities. It shows that an authority is coming into existence that wants to keep away Azerbaijani activists from their birthplace for a while in order to banish them from identity seeking activities.

 
 What is the stage of the case now and is it rational to expect for modification of the ordered issue 
Answer) In 15th October 2007 I submitted the letter of objection to the court of Khoy for revising the case.
Within few days later the dossier will be sent to the court of west Azerbaijan in order to revise it. With attention to the offered vindications in 12 pages, by paying attention to the point that my client hasn’t done any criminal action to deserve punishment and also since reports in the dossier don’t prove the crime of propaganda against the government, I hope the revision authority with paying enough attention and with rejecting idle imaginations reported in the dossier, break the previous issued order and issue his quittance order. Otherwise the suspicion will be appearing that the judges are not unaligned in judgments and they are impressed by the oriented reports of security organizations. And also imprisonment orders, even if be short time, is against the policy of decreasing imprisonment offered by court. Besides it is not fair to whip, to banish to faraway towns, to expel from university or to imprison someone who is active regularly and peacefully and force them to avoid of social activities.

Since you were in the thorough steps of the case from arresting until issuing order, if you have encountered something special, state it please.

Answer) something which is interesting and I think it is necessary to state is the thing that from arresting day and within investigation by intelligence service office and public prosecutor’s office in Khoy the explained accusation was always cooperation with pan-Turkism. The explained accusation neither in intelligence service office nor in public prosecutor’s office was not propaganda against government. The bill of indictment issuing authority to avoid hollow indictment and since cooperation with pan-Turkism is not crime, has referred to article 500 of Islamic penal code as the legal base for cooperation with pan-Turkism in the indictment. In the revolution court of Khoy also propaganda against government is not explained but astonishingly in the written judgment of verdict the indictment of propaganda against government is mentioned and the penalty is based on it.

Since you are familiar with other judicial cases in other cities what your assessment about this case is

Answer) Inaccuracy in choosing indictment title for the collected dossier for my client in both public prosecutor’s office and revolution court of Khoy is the thing that I’ve not experienced in other cities, but the way of encounter with Azerbaijani identity seeker activists in all provinces is the same and based on the reports of general offices of intelligence service in different provinces as well as reports from intelligence service office of cities. The cases related to aforesaid social and cultural activists are formed and are sent to court with issuing the bill of indictment and unfortunately are terminated to conviction; defense of accusers and their lawyers is not terminated in to desired end and without attention to the dossier contents and defenses and without surveying the reality of security authority report, the end is the conviction of accused

.
And ultimately, with attention to judicial investigations and issued orders, how do you assess the view of government to Azerbaijan national movement

Answer) it seems that government and specially court office don’t tend to connive at political, cultural, union and social activities. They also don’t tend to respect to universal declaration of human rights, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Islamic republic of Iran constitution, essential rights law and … in a rational, principal and also regular way.
The process of judicial investigations and issuing conviction order implies that an optimistic prospect is not conceivable and we expect that the process is to be going on. With looking to the aforesaid condition it seems that government tends to force the political, civic, union and social activists to give up their efforts.