Detained Iranian political activist, Abdollah Momeni has written a letter addressed to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, to describe the torture he was subjected to before he participated in the “coerced confessions and the show trials” of last summer.
The International Campaign for Human Rights published Momeni’s letter expressing grave concern over the safety of this political activist in prison and holding Ayatollah Khamenei and Ayatollah Larijani, head of Iran’s judiciary, responsible for his life.
Abdollah Momeni writes that the motivation in writing this letter is the statements of Ayatollah Khamenei in his latest sermon in which he gave his stamp of approval to the “confessions of the accused in front of the camera and millions of viewers.”
Momeni claims that in writing the letter he intends to list the “illegal and irreligious tortures” that led to the confessions in order to question the credibility of the confessions that arise from them.
In his letter Momeni describes being subjected to “severe beatings and suffocations by interrogators until he became unconscious; his head being held in a toilet bowl; solitary confinement for 86 days in a 1.6×2.2 meter (4.8×6.6 ft) cell; repeatedly being threatened with imminent execution; being forced by his interrogators to practice false confessions before his trial; and the complete lack of independence of his Judge, Abol-Ghassem Salavati, and other judicial authorities prosecuting him,” International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran reports.
He adds that he was not allowed to enlist the services of a lawyer and insists that he did not believe in the text he was forced to read out in the trial last summer.
Momeni writes: “I still stand by my beliefs prior to being arrested, and as I have explained I do not consider the statements I read out in court under pressure as mine. Our crime has been and still is that we believe reform and democracy are the most appropriate path for improving the conditions of the country.”
On the other side, the son of an Iranian woman convicted of adultery believes his mother is still facing a stoning death sentence despite reports that it had been suspended.
"I have spoken to my lawyer and he has said that I have not received any documents verifying that this sentence has been suspended. I'm saying that this sentence is still on," Sajjad Mohammadi Ashtiani told CBC Radio's As it Happens, speaking through an interpreter from Iran.