Environmental Activists Face Charge of “Corruption on Earth” in Iranian
Published by Ali on October 29, 2018
Five Iranian environmentalists who were arrested in January 2018, have been issued preliminary indictments, and have been charged with “Corruption on earth”.
These environmentalists activists are British-Iranian-American, named Morad Tahbaz, Taher Ghadirian, Niloufar Bayani, Houman Jowkar and Sepideh Kashani.
There of them who have not yet been charged are Amir Hossein Khaleghi, Abdolreza Kouhpayeh and Sam Rajabi.
The lawyer of a number of the detained environmentalists, Hossein Aghasi, in an interview said that although his clients were initially charged with espionage, Tehran’s Prosecutor changed the charges to “corruption on earth.”
The environmentalists were arrested on 24 and 25 January, 2018, by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) Intelligence Organization.
Detainees charged with various offenses, including national or international security crimes, political, and media crimes, are subject to Article 48 of Iran’s 2014 criminal procedure law, which says that they must select their counsel from a pre-approved pool selected by Iran’s judiciary during the investigation.
The list of lawyers allowed representing people charged with national security crimes in Tehran province was published in June, and does not include any women or human rights lawyers.
We have priviously reported about their condition. https://iliberty.org.uk/iran-environmentalists-spend-eight-months-in-detention-without-formal-charges/
