PROTESTS IN TEHERAN CASE
[The following is a translation. of a statement issued in Cologne, Germany , by the European branch of the League of Iranian Socialists. ] .
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In April 1965, world opinion was, shocked by the arrest of a number of students in Teheran. They were accused of complicity in an attempt to assassinate the Shah.
~The students. were tried before a military court in proceedings that lasted from October to December. The prosecutor demanded the death penalty for four of the defendants. The court condemned two of them to die, and the Shah granted "clemency," commuting their sentences to life imprisonment. :
The fact that death sentences, were not pronounced on all four students and that those who were condemned were not executed was due. to the world-wide protest movement which included many progressive and humanistic figures, committees and organizations. Among those who protested were Jean-Paul Sartre, Bertrand Russell, Fenner Brockway , West German Attorney General Fritz Bauer, Cannon Niemoller, etc.: In Britain seventy-five Labour members of Parliament participated in the protest. In Italy, under the leadership of Lelio Basso, mémbers of Parliament likewise -protested, introducing a parliamentary motion that the Iranian government had violated the . Charter of Human Rights by planning a judicial murder.
Dr. Heldman. ‘of Munich , Germany, attended the trial as an observer for "International Amnesty. "He reported in Die Zeit [West German liberal weekly] that the accusation. was based on no facts whatsoever and that the accused students had been tortured by the police and the prosecutor" s staff. ! -! Now the Shah's government - is undertaking fresh terror measures. In the February 3 Cologne daily Stad-Anzeiger and the
February 9-Vorwarts [Social Democratic weekly] it is reported that a new trial of the same kind was to be organized by the Teheran military court. This time the blows of the Shah's "justice" were aimed against leaders and members of the League of Iranian Socialists.
On August 16, 1965, at 6 a.m., the Iranian secret police arrested three members of the Central Committee of the League of Iranian Socialists -- the building trades worker, A. Shansi; the “bank employee, H. Sarshar; and R. Shaian, a functionary in the Ministry of Labor. In addition they arrested a former member of the Central Committee, K. Maleki, formerly a teacher.
These four have been accused of high treason and charged with attempting to organize a party in opposition to the "constitutional" monarchy. The arrested Socialists have been held in solitary confinement and were refused the right to receive any visitors whatsoever.
K. Maleki suffered from a heart condition and’ was due shortly to be operated on for a cataract in one of his eyes. The military trial began on February 5, the sessions being secret. After the court decided that the case was within its jurisdiction it had to adjourn February 9, due,” as the Iranian press officially admitted, to Maleki's grave condition which. made ‘further continuation of the trial impossible for the time. being.
We have been’ informed that Maleki's health is’ now so bad: that his life is in danger. The jurisdiction of the: military:court is very questionable. Iranian law provides that’: political accusations shall be handled by ordinary civil courts with a jury and in open session.
It should be_ added that’ Maleki- is charged with an: act com-" mitted thirty-two years ago (!)and for which he was already condemned to seven years at hard labor in 1944. He was freed when Allied troops occupied the country during the second world war. If the present charges are upheld, Maleki will have been tried and sentenced twice for the same alleged crime. ;
Maleki and his comrades are in grave. danger. The trial against them could be resumed at any time. It is necessary to act in order to prevent murderous verdicts in this case, too. The prodrcutor has already demanded ten years at hard labor for each of the accused Socialists.
World public opinion, humanistic and progressive persons and organizations must again raise their voices in protest.
Freedom for Maleki, Shansi, Sarshar and Shaian!
Let them be tried before an ordinary civil court in a con- _ pletely public trial!
“Phe: League of Iranian Socialists in Europe calls on all progressive organizations and figures to send protests to. the Iranian embassies in their respective countries, to the Iranian Ministry of Justice in Teheran, and to send copies of these protests to the
League of Iranian Socialists in Europe, c/o Sozialistische Politik, Post Box 1451, Cologne 1, Germany.
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