Human rights lawyer banned from leaving Iran

Iranian authorities prevented Nasser Zarfashan, a human rights lawyer and staunch defender of free expression, from boarding a flight to Brussels Monday, to participate in a seminar on environmental policy at the European Parliament’s invitation.

The authorities, who confiscated Zarfashan’s passport at Tehran’s Imam Khomeiny airport, told him he was forbidden to leave the country as a result of a decision by a Tehran revolutionary court dating back to May 2008.

Zarfashan, a member of the executive committee of the Iranian Writers’ Association, said he was “astonished” that the revolutionary court had not summoned him previously.

“This decision is just a pretext,” Zarfashan said. “My comments about environmental policy could be embarrassing for the Iranian authorities, who have been directly responsible for catastrophes.”

Outraged by Iranian authorities actions, Reporters Without Borders had this to say:

“We condemn the existence of a ‘black list’ of people who are banned from leaving the country and whose passports are to be confiscated,” Reporters Without Borders said. “After hounding journalists and cyber-feminists, the government is now going after human rights activists.”

Zarfashan represented the families of a number of Iranian intellectuals and journalists who were murdered in 1998. He was arrested on 7 August 2002 and was sentenced to five years in prison by a military court for saying the intelligence services had murdered five intellectuals. He was released in March 2007.

By Eka Obaigbena
Group: Iran