open letter of prominent indian citizens august 2010

8/8/2019 Open Letter of Prominent Indian Citizens August 2010

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Call for Immediate Release ofthe Seven Bah leaders by the Iranian Government

e, add our voices to the vast and growing numbers of individuals, agencies and governments the

world over who out of a sense of outrage and distress have spoken up in defense of the seven

innocent Iranian Bah' leaders who have been sentenced totwenty years imprisonment by the

Government of Iran on patently false and unjustifiable charges.

The legal process that was followed to arrive at this appalling judgment has been found to be riddled

with the most glaring anomalies. These seven honest and law-abiding individuals were first arrested in

2008 and were held for nine months before the charges against them were announced. They were

given no more than an hours access to their lawyers before their trial began. Throughout this period,

they were denied bail and were held under conditions of great physical and psychological hardship. This

catalogue of abuses and illegal actions reached its crescendo with the announcement of the prison

sentence. Shirin Ebadi, the Nobel Laureate whose Defenders of Human Rights Center represented theseseven Bah's said in a television interview on the day they were sentenced, "I have read their case file

page by page and did not find anything proving the accusations, nor did I find any document that could

prove the claims of the prosecutor.

The truth is that the only crime that these seven individuals two women and five men, the oldest

among them being 77 years old have committed is that they are Bah's. They are peace - loving

and obedient to the law of their land and have worked for the betterment of Iranian society.

The Iranian Bah' community has been the object of persecution from the time of its inception in 1844.

Ever since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, these persecutions have intensified. Bah's have been

expelled from jobs in public institutions, they have been deprived of higher education, their marriages

are not recognized, their shrines and sacred places have been destroyed, their graves have been

vandalized, their institutions and literature have been banned and they have been denied any means to

express their beliefs or defend themselves. In speaking up for these seven Bah leaders we are

therefore also standing up for the 3,00,000 Iranian Bah's, who constitute that countrys largest

religious minority, whose lives have been blighted and whose progress has been crippled by the

injustices that have so systematically and remorselessly been visited upon them.

As citizens of India, a country that has rightfully prided itself in exemplifying for the world the spirit

of coexistence and tolerance, we feel impelled to voice our strong condemnation of this travesty of

justice. We also express our deep concern for the imprisoned Bahs and their families.

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We call upon all those who are committed to peace and justice in India to join us in petitioning the

Iranian government to immediately and unconditionally release these and other Bahs who have been

unjustly imprisoned in Iran.

India and Iran have had historic ties of language, poetry, architecture, music and religion. In the name

of these ancient ties that bind our two nations, we call on the Government of Iran to act according to

the provisions of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which it has ratified. These

provisions mandate the upholding of the principles of justice and freedom-principles cherished by all

great religions of the world and all nations.

We remind the Government and leadership of Iran that they must honour their own historic

action of 1948 in supporting and adopting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Both Iran and India were prominent among the countries that voted for this landmark declaration --

which confers upon all its signatories the obligation and the privilege -- to uphold, honour and defend

human rights without distinction of any kind.

We call on the Indian Government to use its good offices with Iran to ensure that the seven detainees

are immediately released and given a fair hearing in accordance with the international standards of

jurisprudence.

August 2010

JUDICIARY AND OFFICIAL AGENCIES

Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer, Former Judge, Supreme Court of India

Fali Nariman,Senior Advocate of the Supreme Court of India and President of the Bar Association of

India

Soli Sorabjee, Former Attorney General of India President, United Lawyers Association

Syeda Hameed, Member, Planning Commission of India

R.B. Singh,Distinguished Professor IFFCO Foundation, Ex Assistant Director General of FAO

Amitabh Kundu,Centre for the Study of Regional Development, JNU Former Member, National

Statistical Commission

Zia Mody, Founding Partner, AZB & Partners (Advocates & Solicitors)

Mohini Giri, Founder, Guild of Service India Former Chairperson, National Commission for Women

Tahir Mahmood,formerMember, Law Commission of India, Prof. Amity

Vrinda Grover, Lawyer, Supreme Court of India


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RELIGIOUS LEADERS

Archbishop Vincent Concesso,Archbishop of Delhi, SacredHearts Cathedral, Chairperson, All India

Council of Religions for Peace

Swami Agnivesh, President, World Council of Arya Samaj

Rev. Dr. Dominic Emmanuel, Spokesman of the Delhi Catholic Archdiocese

MEDIA AND CIVIL SOCIETY

Miloon Kothari,Coordinator, Housing and Land Rights NetworkFormer UN Special Rapporteur on

adequate housing

George Verghese, Senior ColumnistVisiting Professor, Center for Policy Research

Suhas Chakma,Director, Asian Centre for Human Rights

Maja Daruwala, Director, Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative

Mira Shiva, South Asian Focal Point, International Peoples Health Council

Rajesh Tandon, President, Society for Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA)

Deep Joshi, Freelance Development Consultant- Former Executive Director, PRADAN

Ashok Khosla, President, Development Alternatives

Ajay Mehta, Executive Director, NationalFoundation for India

Razia Ismail, Womens Coalition for Peace and Development with Dignity

Asghar Ali Engineer, Vice President, People`s Union for Civil Liberties

Martha Farrell,Director, PRIA Continuing Education

Neelima Khetan, Chief Executive, Seva Mandir

Rohit Gandhi, International Correspondent

Ashok Aggarwal, Member, Social Jurist

ACADEMIA

Debolina Kundu,Associate Professor, National Institute of Urban Affairs

Satish Jain, Professor, Centre for Economic Studies and Planning

Sunita Singh Sengupta, Professor, School of Management Studies, Delhi University

open letter of prominent indian citizens august 2010

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