ARREST AND DETENTION OF FARANGIS MAZLOUMI

Email to

1.  Secretary General of the United Nations

2. The High Commissioner for Human Rights UN

3. Office of the UN Commissioner for Human Rights  

4. Javaid Rehman - United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Iran 

5. Amnesty International Iran Team

                                                                                                                                     14 August 2019

TO ALL FRIENDS AND DIGNATORIES

ARREST AND DETENTION OF FARANGIS MAZLOUMI (mother of the Iranian activist Soheil Arabi)   BY THE IRANIAN REGIME

News received from Iran on Monday 22 July 2019 is that Farangis Mazloumi, mother of the prominent political activist Soheil Arabi from Iran, who has been serving a seven-and-a-half-year prison sentence since 2013 for criticizing the Iranian regime on Facebook, has also been arrested by the Iranian regime on Monday 22 July 2019.

Farangis Mazloumi, was arrested and taken to an unknown location on Monday July 22, 2019, after eight intelligence agents raided the residence of Farangis Mazloumi’s sister where she was staying.

The intelligence agents of the regime confiscated both Farangis Mazloumi and her sister’s cellphones and then took Farangis Mazloumi away to an unknown location.

In October 2018, Soheil Arabi was sentenced to six more years behind bars, increasing his total term to 10 years, for engaging in peaceful activism inside the Greater Tehran Penitentiary where he has been held since February 2018. During this period he has been subjected to various forms of mental and physical torture. He has gone on lengthy hunger strikes at least three times to protest against the brutal mistreatment of prisoners by the prison guards and interrogators.

His mother, Farangis Mazloumi has been under tremendous pressure during this period and had commute over long distances to visit her son in prison, but deprived of being able to visit him every time.

Farangis Mazloumi previously said, “I am tortured every day and every night. Will I be alive for 11 more years? How can I bear this suffering? Can my heart endure all this torture? Is the life and youth of our children so worthless? Every time I went to court, they gave me an unsympathetic answer. Who will answer my plea from all this oppression?”

Farangis Mazloumi’s demand for the release of her son has now resulted her also being imprisoned by the regime.  The only crime she was guilty off was loving her son!

Recently the court has granted her $25,000 bail. Taking into consideration the existing poverty levels in Iran, Farangis Mazloumi is in no way able to afford such a ridiculous high bail

This travesty of justice is currently rampant throughout the whole of Iran and the world and in particular the United Nations and the US need to act decisively against the cruel and inhuman behavior of a godless theocratic regime.

Kindest Regards

Stes de Necker

Int. Dipl. Amb.