They Want To Kill My Daughter

Bahareh Hedayat was a student activist and a member of the governing board of Iran’s largest university student organization, the Daftare Tahkim Vahdat. Rooz spoke with her mother, Mahbubeh Javadi, who complained of pressures and threats that were made against her imprisoned daughter and her husband.

Bahareh was arrested in 2009, in connection with the massive protests against the rigged presidential elections that reinstated Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president. Her mother told Rooz that her daughter had been kept in prison illegally since May/June and that officials had threatened to arrest her husband as well. She has been in prison

Ms Javadi also told Rooz that her daughter had written to judiciary and Evin prison officials that if her situation was not finalized and the illegal pressures on her continued, she would begin a hunger strike.

In her conversation with Rooz, Ms Javadi said that the law required that her daughter be freed after 5 years in prison. But her efforts and those of the lawyer she has hired have produced no results and Bahareh continues to be kept in Evin Prison.

“It is very painful to learn that my daughter will resort to a hunger strike simply so that officials will examine her situation and so that their own law will be implemented,” she said. She continued, “They took six youthful years from my daughter’s life. What do they want now? Do they want to kill her? They want to give her dead body to us? I know my daughter’s ways and that if she decides to do something, she will give all of herself to it, even her health. They have threatened her husband with arrest. Mr. Khodabakhshian (an intelligence liaison officer) had expressly told her that they would not release her until she dies. They have repeated threatened that they would arrest her husband. This creates intense pressure that Bahareh is confronting. She is being kept illegally and those who hold her are fully responsible for anything that happens to her.”

She explained that the enforcement judge in the case, Mr. Nasiripour, had told her that from a legal perspective and on the basis of article 134 of the criminal code, Bahareh’s prison term had ended and that she had to be released. He even said that the same judge had told her that they could file a legal suit against those who are not releasing her. “But who do we file against? Some officials tell us that they have written to prison officials, but they express ignorance and claim there are no letters. But why is my daughter being kept after her prison term has been completed? All my daughter has said is that Ahmadinejad was corrupt, a liar, unqualified and a cheater. Officials themselves are now saying exactly the same thing about Ahmadinejad. His deputies are just a few feet away in the very same prison on charges of corruption, theft and embezzlement,” she continued.

Ms Javadi said her daughter was arrested four times during Ahmadinejad’s second presidential term. “Why do they want to kill my daughter? Why do they need her corpse?” she asks.

Bahareh Hedayat was sentenced to eight years of prison on charges of “conspiracy, acts against state security, propaganda against the regime, insulting the president, and insulting the supreme leader.” She also had an earlier conviction of 2 years for participating in a women’s protest gathering.

Amin Ahmadian, Bahareh’s husband, had earlier told Rooz that a request for a home visitation by Bahareh had been denied by prison officials. “Mr. Khodabakhshian, an intelligence liaison officer, had said that Bahareh had to die,” he said.