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Political prisoners jailed in Iran challenge Rouhani’s depiction as a moderate

“How can one call Mullah Rouhani, who has been involved in the suppression of the Iranian people for so many years, a moderate, or welcome the idea that he is a moderate and reformist?”
Prisoners condemned to death or long sentences at Qezelhessar prison in Keraj, Tehran province, have marked the inauguration of the regime’s new president Hassan Rouhani with an open letter challenging claims he is a political moderate.

In a letter to human rights and international organizations and societies, they wrote: “We call on all human rights organizations to push for justice and plead that you urge Rouhani, who claims to be a moderate, to allow you to visit our prisons so that the truth about all those people who commit treachery will become evident to you.”

Describing their living conditions, the prisoners wrote: “Without being found guilty, and based on completely bogus allegations, we are enduring the severest of tortures in Iran’s prisons. Many of our friends in wards 1 and 2 have been executed in recent months without any proper reason. The condition of the prison is like hell for prisoners and there is no medicine or medical treatment even for prisoners who are over 60 and 70 of age. Suicides in prisons, especially in Qezelhessar, continue every day due to pressures imposed on prisoners, who have no right to go on strike and protest against their conditions. How can Mullah Rouhani, who has been involved for years in the suppression of Iranian people, be called a moderate or welcome the idea of him being a moderate and a reformist? We call on you as human rights organizations and politicians everywhere in the world to visit prisons in Iran so that this mullah-created fallacy can be disposed of. Qezelhessar is one of the principal centers of execution of this regime. Please visit this hellhole so that mullahs’ inverted depiction will become evident to you. Prisoners in this prison are violated in the cruellest fashion and against their most rudimentary rights to protest and strike.”

Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the National Council Resistance of Iran, speaking in the Arabic-Islamic Conference of August 3 in Paris, where 31 delegations from Arabic and Islamic countries participated, once again articulated the benchmarks for a move to moderation by Rouhani and stated that without freeing all political prisoners, freedom of activity for all political parties, ceasing the regime’s warmongering in Syria and Iraq, and setting aside the nuclear weapons program, speaking of moderation is merely a myth and deception.

On August 3, Rouhani introduced Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi, one of the principal officials responsible for massacre of 30,000 political prisoners in 1988 in Iran, as his Minister of Justice.

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