Emadeldin Baghi , the head of Society for Defending Prisoners’ Rights in Iran , a journalist and writer , was sentenced to 3 years imprisonment yesterday. The “revolutionary court” of Iran’s Islamic Regime sentenced Mr. Baghi to 2 years imprisonment for “assembly” and “conspiracy for crimes against country’s security” and 1 year imprisonment for “propaganda against regime of Islamic Republic of Iran for benefit of foreign and opposition forces”. According to Mahmoud Alam, defence attorney, this was primary because of Baghi’s interview with media and writing letters about the rights of political prisoners and those who were sentenced to death in the southern City of Ahwaz.

According to Alam four other people including Emadeldin Baghi’s wife and daughter were also sentenced to 3 years imprisonment. They were convicted of attending a human right seminar in United Arab Emirate. Mr. Alam announced that he will be appealing the sentence and he hopes the higher courts would overturn the present verdicts.

Last month in his blog, Emadeldin Baghi published the first comprehensive report in Persian about children execution in Iran. The report which was posted on Baghi’s site was also published by Ham-mihan newspaper in Iran and SCE Campaign. Ham-Miahn newspaper is now accused of conspiracies , shut down and its editors have appeared in courts. Ham-mihan was among the only remaining papers which had a weekly page devoted to “human Rights” . The report by Mr. Baghi included a list of the children facing execution with detailed description of their crime, age and other information. Based on the eye opening contents of the report Stop Child Execution Campaign and Amnesty International immediately reported the substantial increase in the documented cases of children facing execution in Iran. The article was recently translated to English by Amnesty International UK.

Emadeldin Baghi and his wife were also among those who rushed to the recently scheduled execution of Sina Paymard two weeks ago and were instrumental in stopping the execution of Sina Paymard. Baghi was contacted last year by Sina’s father to help with Sina’s case.

BBC radio Persian program recently interviewed Mr. Baghi in Persian about subject of child executions which was also reflected on SCE site: http://scenews.blog.com/1875592/. Also Radio Farda (US) and Radio France interviewed Mr. Baghi on the same subject following the report; The three interviews (in Persian) can be found in the Emadeldin Baghi’s site at : http://www.emadbaghi.com/. (The English language pages of website are at : http://www.emadbaghi.com/en/).

Emadeldin Baghi has previously also been imprisoned by the regime in Iran.

Stop Child Executions Campaign consider charges such as Assembly, attending human rights seminars, interview with media and propaganda against national security the vague and baseless. Freedom of assembly, Interviews, Protecting the human rights of prisoners and children are in compliance with human rights articles of United Nations .

Stop Child Executions Campaign demand the Iranian Authorities and government to immediately drop all charges. We further request United Nations and other International organizations, governments and authorities to strongly object to the recent prison verdicts of Mr. Baghi, his family and associates.

The prison verdicts is categorized as “Ta’ziri” which in Shia terminology is defined as religious verdicts , irreversible and equated with word of God, as such charges are not even in accordance to current laws and constitution of Islamic Republic of Iran.

Sources: ISNA, Etemaad, Eghbal (closed), Ham-mihan (closed), Sramayeh

Emadeldin Baghi is convicted of defending the rights of those who were imprisoned and executed by Iran’s Regime in City of Ahwaz. Above is the Photo of an Iranian youth who was publically executed in Ahwaz.