The following letter is sent to the president of COP26, Mr Alok Sharma and the governments and parties attending COP26. You can support the Iranian jailed environmental activists. Please send this letter or your message to the president of COP26 using the address below, as well as the members of parliament in your country. Please email/tweet and urge them to:
Pressure the Islamic regime in Iran to release all jailed environmental activists in Iran and to stop harassing and detaining these activists.
Address:
Mr Alok Sharma, President for COP26
alok.sharma.mp@parliament.uk Tweet: @COP26
COP26Media@cabinetoffice.gov.uk
Letter:
To: Mr Alok Sharma, President of COP26
Cc: Governments attending COP26
Date: 28 October 2021
Re: On the occasion of UN Climate Change (COP26), we urge you to demand the release of jailed environmental activists in Iran
The UK will host the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow on 31 October – 12 November 2021. On behalf of the Campaign to Free Political Prisoners in Iran (CFPPI), I would like to urge you to pressure the Islamic regime in Iran to release jailed environmental activists and also to stop harassing and detaining environmental activists and their families.
While important issues of climate change are discussed in COP26, the Islamic government in Iran, whose representatives have also been invited to this conference, is arresting and torturing those activists who are making awareness of the effect of climate change in Iran. Ironically, the president of the Islamic regime, Ebrahim Raisi, who has been involved in murdering opposition activists and has committed crimes against humanity, was also invited to COP26. Under Raisi’s power, tens of environmental activists have been arrested and given lengthy jail sentences. I need to mention that it was only after a call for his arrest on his arrival in Scotland, that Raisi announced that he will not be attending the conference. It would have been an international embarrassment and humiliation for the organisers of the COP26, if Raisi, a well-known criminal, was attending the conference.
The Islamic regime in Iran has been deliberately ignoring and neglecting environmental and ecological problems and in many cases created a prolonged, self-inflicted environmental crisis in Iran. Moreover, the Iranian environmental activists fear for their lives and are being killed, kidnapped, jailed, and tortured by the Islamic regime. The regime’s delegates, who might attend the COP26, are not representatives of people in Iran; they are murderers and are the biggest polluters and destroyers of the environment in Iran. They must be boycotted and not invited to the COP26.
Following names are only a few examples of how the environmental activists are being treated by the Islamic regime in Iran:
Mr. Kavous Seyed-Emami was an Iranian-Canadian academic and conservationist. Seyed-Emami ran the Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation. He was arrested in January 2018 and was murdered in February 2018 in Evin prison in Iran. Prison authorities fabricated a reason that he committed suicide.
Mr. Erfan Rashidi was sentenced to 1 year in prison.
Mr. Houman Jokar and Mr. Taher Ghadirian, each received eight-year sentences.
Ms. Sepideh Kashadoost, Mr. Sam Rajabi and Mr. Amir-Hossein Khaleghi are serving six years each.
Mr. Abdolreza Kouhpayeh was sentenced to four years.
Mr. Morad Tahbaz received a 10-year prison sentence.
Ms. Niloufar Bayani, a Conservation Scientist, who is now serving 10-year prison sentences, spoke out about her situation in prison. In one of her letters in 2019, Bayani wrote her chilling account of her torture. She stated that her interrogations sometimes lasted 9-12 hours during the day and night while she was held for eight months in solitary confinement. She wrote: “Every time I… sought help from the authorities, the pressures, threats, and acts of torture increased. I was blindfolded and interrogated while standing, spinning, or sit-and-standing repeatedly… threatened with the arrest and torture of my 70-year-old mother and father… threatened with physical torture by being shown images and descriptions of torture devices…heard hours of detailed descriptions about the suffering and pain caused by torture… I was increasingly terrified that if I didn’t write whatever [my interrogator] wanted, he would violently and sexually assault me…”
The governments and organisations that attend the COP26 must take urgent actions against the Islamic regime of Iran and pressure them to release jailed environmental activists.
Shiva Mahbobi, Spokeswoman
Campaign to Free Political Prisoners in Iran (CFPPI)
www.cfppi.org , shiva.mahbobi@gmail.com
