Mazyar -in English

In June 2012 Mazyar Ebrahimi, my husband’s younger brother, was arrested in Tehran by Iran’s intelligence for ‘reasons of national security’. Intelligence agents did not give any further explanations for his arrest.

Mazyar has now been detained for almost two months without charge.

The family has not been allowed to see him, and they are not certain of the reasons of his arrest or of his whereabouts. We believe that he is being held in custody at Evin prison -in northwestern Tehran.

On 6 August 2012 Iran’s national TV aired a 40-minute documentary, titled “Terror Club”, showing a group of 14 Iranian citizens, eight men and six women, allegedly involved in the killings of  5 Iranian nuclear scientists since 2010.

The broadcast contained re-enactments of the killings by motorcycle-riding hit men, and purported ‘confessions’ by 13 of the suspects, who allegedly traveled to Israel to receive military training in training camps in the outskirts of Tel-Aviv -funded by the US.

Mazyar was one of the 13 suspects admitting to working for Israel in the planning and assassination of the 5 scientists involved in Iran’s nuclear program.

Mazyar is innocent.
His family, friends and colleagues are certain and can prove that he couldn’t possibly have been involved in any acts of espionage, let alone in the murders in question.

There is no doubt that his confession is false, and that it was obtained under duress.

We also have reason to believe that he was framed in connection with his business activities, as he had been threatened a few times prior to his arrest.

Mazyar is 38. He is the second of four children. His father, a now retired director of photography, is well-known in Iran for his work as well as for being one of  the founders of 3 Iranian TV networks in the 1960s.

Mazyar worked for many years for Iran’s TV networks. In 2006 he founded Ahoura Broadcast & Media Solutions Ltd. Co. in Sulaymaniyah, Iraq, which provides services and equipment for television and cinema production throughout the Middle-East, including Iran.
He had just closed a very important deal with one of Iran’s TV networks.

Mazyar was born and raised in Tehran. His parents and sister still live there. His younger brother lives in Damascus, while his older brother, my husband Shapoor, has been living in Italy for 8 years.

For days now, Mazyar’s family living abroad has not been able to receive updates on the situation back home as phone and email are being monitored by Iranian intelligence. Also, Shapoor and his brother living in Damascus, despite their fear for Mazyar and their family living in Iran, can not safely return to Tehran. Iranian citizens living abroad are usually screened upon their return to their country, and, given Mazyar’s current status as ‘suspect’, the two brothers’ return could be very risky.

We are looking to find a way to bring concrete help to Mazyar, who is risking his life in Iran for a crime he has not committed.

It is a dramatic situation. Learning what happens in prisons under the Iranian regime has made us all extremely anxious and apprehensive.

As the few survivors, who managed to escape Iran, report, what happens in Iranian prisons is atrocious.
Prisoners are tortured daily. Torture can be physical, psychological, or both. Torture techniques include: whipping, deprivation of sleep, waterboarding, suspension from ceiling, insertion of sharp instruments under the fingernails, mock executions, threats against family members, the ‘coffin’ (whereby the prisoner is placed in a very small cubicle, blindfolded and in absolute silence, for 17-hour stretches).  Prisoners are also told daily that everyone has forgotten them.

From the moment they arrive in prison, detainees are also asked to give ‘interviews’ (mosahebe). Recorded and edited on videotape, and subsequently aired on TV, such ’inteviews’ are confessions to acts of subversion and the like -obtained through torture.

It’s a great injustice and one of the worst forms of violation of human rights.

We are ready to do whatever it takes to put an end to Mazyar’s suffering.

Please join our cause.
An international campaign is the only way to ensure his release.
Any help that you may give will be greatly appreciated.