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Reporters Without Borders http://www.rsf.org/callforimmediaterelease of11062015,47992.html Rigged trial Call for immediate release of Washington Post journalist now on trial 11 June 2015 Reporters Without Borders reiterates its call for the immediate and unconditional release of Washington Post correspondent Jason Rezaian, whose trial by a Tehran revolutionary court is being conducted illegally behind closed doors and under Revolutionary Guard influence. Rezaian, who has US and Iranian dual nationality, has been held for more than ten months in Tehran’s Evin prison on charges – spying, collaborating with hostile governments, gathering confidential information and “propaganda against the Islamic Republic” – for which there is no concrete evidence. The second hearing in his trial, in which his Iranian journalist wife Yeganeh Salehi is codefendant, began on 7 June. According to the information obtained by Reporters Without Borders, the evidence cited in the written indictment consist solely of his personal and professional emails, from which phrases have been taken out of context and used to put Rezaian under a lot of pressure. In fact, the case against him is nonexistent. After nearly 11 months of Revolutionary Guard harassment of Rezaian and his family, no hard evidence has emerged to support the charges. Physical and psychological pressure Many irregularities were seen during the first hearing on 26 May, including the use of a confession obtained under duress and the fact that the public and press should not have been excluded. Forced confessions are common in Iran. Suspects are subjected to solitary confinement and are prevented from communicating with their families or lawyers. This puts them under a psychological pressure that makes it easier to extract a “confession.” This is the case with Rezaian, who has been held in the “Security 2A” section of Evin prison, a section controlled by the Revolutionary Guards. Article 38 of the Iranian constitution nonetheless states that: “It is not permitted to force a person to testify, make a confession or make a sworn statement and such testimony, confessions or statements will have no validity.” The judicial system, especially the revolutionary courts, resort almost systematically to closeddoor hearings although article 169 of the constitution says that trials for “political” or “press” crimes must be public. Justice under Supreme Leader’s control There is nothing independent about the justice system in Iran. Article 110 of the constitution says that it is the Supreme Leader who appoints the head of the judicial system. Aboughasem Salevati, the president of the court that is trying Rezaian and his wife, has been persecuting journalists and bloggers for years and is accused of involvements in abuses that could be regarded as crimes against humanity . “Spying” and “collaborating with foreign governments” are charges that have been brought against most of the journalists who have been arrested and jailed in Iran. Adnan Hassanpour and Mohammad Sadegh Kabodvand are currently detained on these charges. Past media victims include Siamak Pourzand in 2000, Hossein Ghazian and Abbas Abdi in 2004, Parnaz Azima and Ramin Jahabeglou in 2006, Mohammad Hassin Falahieh Zadeh and Ali Farahbakhsh in 2007, Roxana Saberi in 2008 and two German journalists, Marcus Hellwig and Jens Koch, in 2010. All were convicted of spying. Most of them confessed to the charges against them after being subjected to intense physical and psychological pressure. Rezaian is also the victim of a power struggle between different government factions. And he is being used by a regime which, since 1979, has often exchanged foreign detainees (or those with dual nationality) for Iranian agents held in other countries. This form of blackmail is unfortunately practiced with the complicity of democratic countries, especially the United States, which has on several occasions submitted to the demands of the Iranian authorities. Background Revolutionary Guards in plain clothes arrested Rezaian at his Tehran home on 22 July 2014 along with his wife – who was working for The National, a newspaper based in the United Arab Emirates – and two other US citizens. Their apartment was searched and ransacked, and all computers and electronic devices were seized. The two other US citizens were released provisionally a month later. After payment of a large sum in bail, Rezaian’s wife was freed provisionally on 4 October pending trial. Farsnews, a news agency linked to the Revolutionary Guards, reported on 12 April that Rezaian would be tried for “selling business and industrial information to the CIA.” Responding to the report the same day, Washington Post editor Martin Baron described the allegation as absurd and condemned the fact that Rezaian had been denied any legal advice for the past nine months. Vatané Emrooz, an extremist daily that supports the Revolutionary Guards and former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, ran a frontpage story on 18 April that was headlined “Unveiling Jason’s secrets.” It accused Rezaian of infiltrating the government and various institutions to uncover the methods used by Iran to circumvent international sanctions. His lawyer, Leila Ahsan, gave Agence FrancePresse the details of the charges after being allowed to see Rezaian on 20 April and said this meeting was their first since she took the case at the start of March. Rezaian’s family in the United States has meanwhile been pressing the Obama administration to make his release a priority. In a statement issued on 2 April, after the United States reached a tentative agreement with Iran on its nuclear industry, Rezaian’s brother, Ali, said: “Now that the framework agreement is in place, we call on the Iranian leadership to review the evidence their underlings claim to have against Jason.” More than 400,000 people have so far signed a petition for Rezaian’s release that Reporters Without Borders has relayed. Reporters Without Borders secretarygeneral Christophe Deloire joined a dozen wellknown media figures, including Noam Chomsky, Anderson Cooper, Christiane Amanpour, Marty Baron and National Press Club president John Hughes, in writing to Iranian judicial system chief Sadegh Amoli Larijani requesting Rezaian’s immediate release. Iran is ranked 173rd out of 180 countries in the 2015 Reporters Without Borders press freedom index. You can download those documents on our website : • , (JPEG 45.1 kb).