- Target:
- Ahmed Shaheed, UN, UNHCHR, State Department, EU, Navi Pillay, Ban Ki-Moon, European Parliament
- Region:
- GLOBAL
- Website:
- chrr.biz
April 13, 2013--Committee of Human Rights Reporters – According to received reports, student, blogger and cyber activist Pouria Farazmand was detained in Kermanshah on April 7th.
According to CHRR, last Sunday when the student from Kermanshah province went to his university to follow up on matters regarding his graduation, he was handed a summons by the university security. As Farazmand was exiting the university, plain clothed officials who were equipped with walkie-talkies and pistols accosted and detained the student.
Students who witnessed the clash reported that the officials engaged in a brutal confrontation with Pouria Farazmand, beating him up and insulting him as they detained him.
After Pouria Farazmand was violently taken away, one of the security officials, M. Seyedi, appeared in front of the university’s gate and hurled insults while threatening the group of students who had converged at the scene. He lashed denigrating remarks and called the detained student and blogger a “spy” who is associated with “foreign entities.”
Pouria Farazmand is the writer for the blog Azadi Baraye Hamegan (freedom for all) and served on the editorial board of Mosht (fist), a banned student newspaper. Witness students said Farazmand never wrote anything pointing to foreign associations and that he only wrote about internal politics in Iran.
There is still no news of the whereabouts or condition of the student blogger.
During the past months an increasing number of bloggers, Internet activists and citizens taking part in social networks critical of the ruling regime have been arrested in various provinces in the country including Tehran, Alborz, Fars, Kurdistan and Razavi Khorasan.
WHEREAS For as long as Iranian blogger Pouria Farazmand remains in regime custody he is clearly a prisoner of conscience being persecutetd solely for exercising his rights to freedom of expression;
And WHEREAS the arrest and continued detention of this blogger all violate Article 19 of the International Covenant On Civil And Political Rights--to which Iran is a signatory state--as well as Article 24 of the Iranian Constitution;
And WHEREAS the grim history of the Islamic Republic regime in Iran as regards torture and other abuse of prisoners of conscience raise the very gravest concerns for the well-being of Pouria Farazmand in light of his unknown whereabouts;
THEREFORE, we the undersigned demand that the international community bring ALL POSSIBLE PRESSURE to bear upon the Islamic Republic regime in Iran to IMMEDIATELY and UNCONDTIONALLY release Pouria Farazmand, as well as all other prisoners of conscience in Iran.
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The Free Iranian Blogger Pouria Farazmand petition to Ahmed Shaheed, UN, UNHCHR, State Department, EU, Navi Pillay, Ban Ki-Moon, European Parliament was written by John S. Burke and is in the category Human Rights at GoPetition.