CHRI:

A female former UN Environment consultant’s complaints of physical and psychological torture at the hands of her male interrogators were ignored by Iranian judicial officials, and forced “confessions” obtained as a result of torture were used to imprison her and seven fellow wildlife conservationists, according to her newly published letters from Tehran’s Evin Prison.

In one of conservation scientist Niloufar Bayani’s letters to then-Judiciary Chief Sadegh Larijani, dated January 24, 2019, and excerpted online by BBC Persian on February 18, 2020, Bayani described being forced to endure “interrogations lasting 9-12 hours day and night” while held for eight months in “solitary confinement”:

“I was interrogated blindfolded while standing, spinning or sit-and-standing… threatened with the arrest and torture of my 70-year-old mother and father… threatened with physical torture by being shown images and descriptions of torture devices…heard hours of detailed descriptions about the suffering and pain caused by torture.”

“For the past two years we’ve been documenting egregious rights abuses in the cases of Bayani and her imprisoned colleagues while sadistic intelligence agents and judicial officials have been manufacturing a case against them,” said the communications director of the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) Jasmin Ramsey.

“Instead of halting the horrendous mistreatment of these peaceful wildlife conservationists, Iran’s then-Judiciary Chief Sadegh Larijani looked on while they were sentenced to prison without due process,” Ramsey added. “Newly appointed Judiciary Chief Ebrahim Raisi should release them immediately and allow an independent investigation into Bayani’s complaints.”

Bayani also described being repeatedly sexually harassed.

“I was increasingly terrified that if I didn’t write whatever [my interrogator] wanted, he would violently sexually assault me,” wrote Bayani, 32, in one of the excerpted letters that was translated into English by CHRI.

“Because of his inexplicable sudden appearances and disgusting behavior in various places like dark passages and in the detention yard, I didn’t feel safe anywhere. Intolerable anxiety never ceased,” she said.

“Every time I… sought help from the authorities, the pressures, threats and acts of torture increased,” added Bayani, who worked as a consultant for the UN Environment Program between 2012-17.

In her letter to the judiciary chief, Bayani—who is currently serving a 10-year prison sentence—had requested that the court release audio and video recordings of her interrogations as well as her medical files to prove her allegations.

On February 19, the lawyer of Bayani’s colleague Sepideh Kashani told the Persian-language Ensaf News that Kashani had presented the court with an “affidavit” and “written statements” detailing “similar” experiences that “totally undermined the foundations of the investigations against her.”

Bayani, an Iranian citizen, received her master’s degree in conservation biology from Columbia University in 2012 before working for the UNEP in Geneva. In 2017, she returned to Iran to work for the Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation (PWHF), a non-profit organization that was operating in Tehran with the permission of the Iranian government.

The Iranian judiciary’s imprisonment of Bayani and eight of her PHWF colleagues (former PWHF Managing Director Kavous Seyed-Emami died in January 2018 while held for interrogations in Evin Prison) has been internationally condemned by environmental and human rights-focused organizations including the UN and renowned primatologist Jane Goodall among 370 distinguished conservationists and academics.

On February 19, UNEP Executive Director Inger Andersen tweeted that she was “disheartened and disappointed” by the appeals court’s verdict and called for “clemency.”

The eight conservationists have been held in Tehran’s Evin Prison since January 2018 when they were first arrested by agents of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ intelligence organization. The IRGC continued building a case against them on fabricated “espionage” charges after three major state agencies including the Intelligence Ministry and Supreme National Security Council said the charges were baseless.

A source with detailed knowledge of the conservationists’ cases told CHRI that the defendants and their lawyers have yet to be officially notified of the Appeals Court’s verdict which was announced by Judiciary Spokesman Gholam-Hossein Esmaili at a press conference in Tehran on February 18, 2020.

Go to link