“I feel so ashamed that during the 33 years after the revolution we as the Shia owners of this cursed land have not been either suitable neighbors, people or even citizen for you or for the people of the same faith as you. Before the revolution there was a good relationship between you and us. Apart from the particularities that one can find everywhere in the world, both groups enjoyed the same rights in our motherland Iran, and were respected and free. Nobody would have looked down at you just because of your Turkmen origin, being from border towns or belonging to Sunni Islam. On the other hand no one would have looked up to us just because we were from the capital or had Persian roots.”

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Mohammad Nourizad’s letter sparks campaign calling on Khamenei to apologise over crackdown on Iranian protesters.

In the age of emails and tweets, writing old-fashioned letters has become the new way of

 expressing dissent in Iran. The veteran journalist Mohammad Nourizad wrote his first open letter to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in the aftermath of the disputed 2009 election. It went unanswered, as have Nourizad’s 21 other missives, but dozens more prominent Iranians have followed his example in a campaign to break the taboo on criticising the man who purports to be God’s representative on earth.

Nourizad, an influential columnist and film-maker, was originally an ally of Khamenei who wrote for the ultra-conservative state-run newspaper Keyhan, whose director is directly appointed by the supreme leader.

But that changed amid the bloody crackdown on opposition protesters after the election. In his first letter Nourizad called Khamenei “father” – but criticised him for his handling of the unrest and called on him to apologise to his people.

“As commander in chief of the armed forces, you didn’t treat people well after the election. Your agents opened fire, killed the people, beat them and destroyed and burnt their property. Your role in this can’t be ignored … Your apology can cool down the wrath of the people,” he wrote.

The letter – and those which followed – infuriated the authorities, and although Nourizad, now 60, was for a while protected by his prominence, in April 2010 he was arrested on charges of insulting the officials and propaganda against the regime.

In jail, he spent almost 70 days in solitary confinement and was subject to lengthy interrogations without the presence of his lawyer, during which he says he was physically abused. Nourizad staged a hunger strike in protest, but was sentenced to three and a half years. He was released after 170 days.

Once outside prison, Nourizad continued to voice his criticism in open letters and later asked other activists to join his campaign.

The letters have offered a form of samizdat criticism, copied and shared among regime insiders. The former general whose letter Nourizad recently published said he was dismissed from the Revolutionary Guards for duplicating and distributing the journalist’s letters.

Nourizad received death threats for his letter campaign. “I’m not afraid of being arrested, nor dying for what I am doing now,” he told the Guardian in a phone call from Tehran. “In fact, I’ve put my life in the palm of my hand. The authorities can’t do much with a person like me who is not even afraid of dying.”

Nourizad is not the only one resorting to letter-writing to air his grievances. Many imprisoned activists followed suit, describing their time in custody to their family members in letters smuggled out of prison. Nasrin Sotoudeh, a human rights lawyer who has been jailed for six years, recently wrote an emotional letter to his young son on a piece of toilet paper.

Source: Guardian

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Filmmaker Mohammad Nourizad, who spent almost a year in prison for criticizing the regime in letters he sent to Khamenei, has renewed his sharp criticism in a new short movie, “We Have Murdered People.” The movie begins:

We must believe that we have failed the 33-year test of the Islamic Revolution and the implementation of the promises that we made to the people. This is a fact, albeit bitter. Our bankruptcy began quite some time ago, as has the time for saying goodbye, goodbye to the Islamic justice that the Revolution promised. So long, human rights that the Revolution promised to the people of Iran and the world. So long, the fallen ideals of the Revolution. We have demonstrated that the religious people and the clerics can lie if they come to power, that they can turn their backs on all the promises that they made, that they can embrace the world[’s materialism], despite once speaking against it in the past, that they can oppress, they can loot, they can murder people.

The movie ends  with “We lied, we lied, we lied, we looted, we murdered people, murdered people. We murdered people”.

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In his letters, Mohammad Nourizad accused the “father” – Ayatollah Ali Khamenei – of being surrounded by corruption, and dared him to cease military rule to see what happens [EPA]

Playa del Carmen, Mexico – Iranians around the globe these days are mesmerised in anticipation of the next public letter that Mohammad Nourizad will write to Ali Khamenei.

Much is happening in Iran these days, all under the radar of the Arab Spring and its cataclysmic consequences, whilst the US and its regional allies’ counter-revolutionary designs to halt and derail the Arab Spring laser-beams on the Iranian nuclear project. These events, exemplified by Nourizad’s letters and the public reaction to them, can only be understood in dialectical reciprocity with the world-historic events turning the region upside down, with the tsunami of the Arab revolts in particular, and with full recognition of the US-Israeli-Saudi attempts to alter their course to their respective benefits. The import of these events will remain entirely bewildering if left to the limited means of the nativist Iranian expat “opposition”, with their “Iran über alles” motto, or to those non-Iranians habitually severing the Arab uprisings from the democratic landscape of the region.

The letters of Mohammad Nourizad are now known and counted by their numbers – now only five, then 10, and by the end of 2011 they had amounted to no less than 15. These letters are written and published publicly to the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic, Ali Khamenei. The reaction of Iranians to these letters all comes together to mark a critical passage in contemporary Iranian political culture with ramifications for the region at large.

Nourizad publishes his letters initially in his website, and from there they go viral – millions of Iranians around the globe read them, jaws dropping in admiration of his courage, his diction, his tenacity. He pulls no punches.

These letters are punctiliously polite, written in an exceedingly genteel diction, never crossing the boundaries of propriety – and then quickly, they cut to the chase and expose the horrors of the Islamic Republic, its military and intelligence establishments, chapter and verse. For Mohammad Nourizad was, once, an insider.

Change of heart

Mohammad Nourizad (born on December 10, 1952) is an Iranian filmmaker and journalist. He studied engineering, but turned quickly to journalism and filmmaking, and put his talents at the service of the Islamic Republic. His journalistic career is tied with the arch-conservative daily Keyhan, where he was a columnist, making a name and reputation for himself as quite a prominent conservative supporter of Ayatollah Khamenei and a severe opponent of the Reform Movement of the late 1990s and early 2000s, as led by the two-term President Mohammad Khatami. But something happened to Nourizad in the aftermath of June 2009 presidential election – something that must have been brewing in him for a much longer time. When it emerged, it morphed into a principled critical judgment against the status quo – with a moral clarity impossible to ignore.

In three successive letters, written soon after the disputed presidential election of June 2009, Nourizad politely admonished Khamenei for taking sides with Ahmadinejad and not recognising presidential candidates Mir Hossein Musavi, Mehdi Karroubi, and the former president Mohammad Khatami as true friends and the true supporter of the Islamic Republic. He denounced the brutal crackdown of the people, and asked Khamenei to apologise to Iranians and call for a national reconciliation.

Soon after he published these letters to Khamenei, Nourizad was arrested in April 2010, sentenced and jailed. But from his jail, he continued to write letters, his tone even more adamant, his revelations even more damaging, but still polite, warning Khamenei that he had lost the confidence of the people, that Iranians were kept from revolting only by vicious and brutal military suppression and intimidation. He dared the Supreme Leader to cease the military rule and see what will happen.

While he was in jail, suffering in solitary confinement, Nourizad’s wife appealed for his release, as did scores of prominent Iranian filmmakers – all to no avail. Meanwhile, Nourizad was severely beaten in prison, in response to which he went on a hunger strike. His jailers asked him to repent and write to Khamenei for clemency. He did no such thing. He continued to write, until his pregnant daughter asked him to stop for her sake, which he did; his next public letter was to his daughter instead, continuing to expose

Following the release of a private and confidential film about his personal life, renowned filmmaker and journalist Mohammad Nourizad spoke with the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran about the illegality of its release.

Nourizad told the Campaign that security and intelligence officials confiscated personal footage and films from his home during his arrest, and used it to create a video. This video appeared on YouTube on 10 December.

“This is stolen footage from a confidential film. They can use the materials of the film to build a case against me as a spy and a traitor but it is not permissible to take my personal computer and use my family photos and videos against me. I am not speaking from a religious point of view but from a societal and legal perspective. This is part of the most essential ethical and legal rights of human beings.”

Nourizad said he would file a complaint against the Intelligence Office of the Revolutionary Guard, whom he implicated in the theft and fabrication of the video.

“They [the Revolutionary Guards] were the ones who confiscated my filming equipment and used my private recordings. I was in the backyard shooting when ten people broke into my father’s house. They confiscated my camera and equipment while eight of them went inside the house and seized my belongings.”

The YouTube video showed Nourizad’s personal photos and videos, including previous footage of him praising the Supreme Leader, taken from when he was still working for the publication Kayhan.

Nourizad told the Campaign that his son, Abouzar Nourizad, was his assistant in the shooting of the film and left Iran upon its completion. By distorting the content of the film, Nourizad said, “they are trying to convey that my son, who had assisted me in the making of the film, is a fugitive and has escaped the country.”

Nourizad said he had been in the process of making a confidential film for the Supreme Leader, which was clearly mentioned in all of the recorded footage.

“What you have seen in [that] video was a movie set I built in my parent’s house. I stayed there for eighty days, which gave me enough time to make the set for the film. I undertook the making of this film without releasing any information about it. In other words this was a confidential project.”

During the past few years, security and intelligence forces have used home videos, personal photos, and falsely edited videos of detainees’ interrogations in order to ruin their reputation and image, even after their release from prison.

“In my film I talked about my anguish in solitary confinement. The Revolutionary Guards distorted the movie to destroy my image by claiming that because I used to write such articles [in support of the Supreme Leader] I have changed my position.,” added Nourizad.

“I would have accepted their accusations If they had arrested me while spying or recorded my video while communicating with their enemies; but I was making a film about my time in prison for the Supreme Leader in my father’s backyard.”

Nourizad told the Campaign that he will definitely go to court and complain. “Even though my complaints will be the subject of their laughter I will still do what I have to do.”

The video depicted Nourizad in a poor emotional and mental health. When asked about his condition at that time, Nourizad said:

“Prisoners always suffer from Illness and depression specially when they are kept in solitary confinement for a long period of time. I was in solitary confinement for more than sixty days and naturally this period caused extreme depression but I tried to keep my mental health by exercising.”

Nourizad believes that security officials will further edit and release inaccurate material from the large amount of footage that they had confiscated.

“In the film, there were scenes in which I talked directly to the camera. There was plenty of other material on my personal computer which were used and edited into a series of which the released video is probably the first part.”

In the past few months, Nourizad has written numerous letters about the horrible prison conditions to the Supreme Leader.

When was asked if he would continue to write letters to the Supreme Leader, he replied: “I certainly will continue writing my letters, I will write my weekly letters until the presidential elections.”

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In an interview with the International Campaign with Human Rights in Iran, Mohammad Nourizad, a filmmaker, journalist and prisoner of conscience currently on furlough, provided details about his own case as well as the abuse of other prisoners. “I saw a young man who had been beaten, his lips were torn, and he had been slapped in the face numerous times. I believe what Hamzeh Karami and Abdollah Momeni said [about prison abuse] was accurate. They were badly tortured.” In separate letters from prison, political prisoners Hamzeh Karami and Abdollah Momeni reported being  abused and tortured.

“I was transferred to Evin Prison on 20 December 2009. It appeared that everything had been planned before. During a superficial case and setting a $500,000 bail during a tight time frame, it was obvious that Evin awaited me…Judge Pirabbasi sentenced me to 3.5 years in prison; two years for insulting the Supreme Leader; one year for propagating against the regime; three months for insulting the president; three months for insulting the Head of the Judiciary, and 50 lashes for insulting the Mashad Friday Imam,” said Nourizad, adding that he has already served exactly 1.5 years of his prison term. “They will flog me in the end to remember the taste.”

Nourizad emphasized that he has already spent 68 days in solitary confinement inside Wards 209 and 240 of Evin Prison, having had no access to “paper, pen, or telephone” in that time. In the beginning of his imprisonment, he was not allowed to be represented by a lawyer, but after some time Mahmoud Alizadeh Tabatabaei took on his case. About facilities provided to him in Evin Prison he said, “The same things that must be given to a horse or a donkey to keep them alive. It is only later, in the General Ward, when some concessions such as books, papers, pen, etc. are provided.”

“Insults, curses against my honor, and beatings; these are the things that happened to me twice. In the following sessions, insults, humiliations and threats to my family continued, and things that shame me to repeat. Perhaps for about a year we were forced to wear blindfolds. Later, when I realized that the use of blindfolds was illegal, I resisted, and that by itself is another long story. My access to telephone calls, visitation, etc. was cut off. I told them [my access to those things] is the law. They said, we defecate on this law. Because they cursed my family, as an objection, I personally refused to call my family. Ninety three days later, I started to make telephone calls around the Persian New Year in March 2011,” Nourizad explained.

“They sentenced me based on my own confessions. They would mention a charge as my ‘crime,’ and I would name ten more myself, telling them: ‘If you didn’t know, I also believe in the following and I have also said the following.’ So, they sentenced me according to my own confessions. But what crimes?! That’s the funny part!” Nourizad told the Campaign.

“I developed a skin condition. I developed an infection in my jaws. My teeth became loose. Maybe it was because of the prolonged hunger strikes, but the prison itself is a contributing factor which affects [one's health] silently,” said Nourizad about his health after prison.

Nourizad wrote several letters about prison conditions to Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei. “I don’t know whether he knows this or not. If he doesn’t know, he will not be relieved of his responsibilities. After I wrote those letters inside the prison, they sentenced me to two more years. It [the trial court] was quite satirical! They asked me two questions in three minutes. In fact my sentence is 5.5 years plus 50 lashes,” Nourizad added.

Mohammad Nourizad has written wrote for Kayhan newspaper. The documentary filmmaker and blogger wrote three critical letters to Ali Khamenei after the 2009 elections which led to his arrest.  He has been sentenced to a total of 5.5 years in prison and 50 lashes on charges of “propagating against the regime” and “insulting” several Islamic Republic officials. He is currently out of prison on furlough.

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Mohammad Nourizad, the persecuted Iranian journalist and filmmaker who was recently released from prison, has called on Iran’s Supreme Leader to rule that each day a prisoner spends in solitary confinement will shave 10 days from his or her sentence.

Nourizad was jailed for his letters critical of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei. On his personal website he writes: “My foremost request to our honest leader is to secure the release of all the post-election prisoners. However, if this request is not possible, then I am obliged to press for the return of rights that have been denied to prisoners and to urge the leader to issue an edict announcing that one day in solitary is worth at least 10 days of imprisonment.”

“Some of the most bitter seconds and hours of imprisonment are the moments and days in the solitary,” he adds.

Nourizad refers to solitary confinement as a form of torture that “wears out” the prisoner and he insists that a basic right is being withheld when solitary confinement is seen as equivalent to imprisonment in the general section.

If the Supreme Leader issued this edict, he adds, then many of the recent political prisoners would be released.

Nourizad writes: “Our leader has tasted imprisonment and exile and is aware of the anxiety and fear of solitary confinement.”

Ayatollah Khamenei was imprisoned for his political activities during the time of Iran’s last monarch, Mohammadreza Pahlavi .

Nourizad was sentenced last year to three years in prison and 50 lashes for “insulting officials and propaganda against the regime.” He was imprisoned in December of 2009 and released this month.

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Iranian filmmaker and journalist Mohammad Nourizad was released today after nearly two years in prison.

Last week, Nourizad’s wife Fatemeh Maleki reported that her husband had been on a hunger strike for more than 40 days, refusing all calls and visitors. He had told the prosecutor’s office that he would continue with his strike until his demands were met.

Nourizad was arrested following the 2009 presidential election in Iran and sentenced to three and half years in prison and 50 lashes for “insulting public officials and propaganda against the regime.”

Nourizad’s release was announced on his personal website but with no indication whether the release is conditional.

The charges against Nourizad were in response to a series of critical letters that journalists wrote to the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei.

The Kaleme opposition website described Nourizad as a “staunch opponent of the reform movement” prior to the 2009 presidential elections who nevertheless joined the legion of government critics following the disputed re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Nourizad was a columnist for the state-backed daily Keyhan before his arrest.

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In an interview with the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, Fatemeh Maleki, the wife of journalist and filmmaker Mohammad Nourizad, said she has had no word from her husband for the past month. “My last meeting with Mr. Nourizad was on 18 March, and I have not heard from him since. He was in critical condition with his kidney problem, and [the problem with] his teeth; I think he may have lost all his teeth by now. The day he was recalled to prison, he was scheduled for treatment, but authorities said that we had to take him back to prison, and that they would pursue his dental work there, but it was never pursued and right now I have no information about him at all,” Maleki told the Campaign.

“I have not and will not try to find out why they won’t let us visit him or let him call us because I feel that they don’t understand what we are talking about at all, and our current conditions are not important for them at all. At this time, I demand the release of Mohammad Nourizad, and not having telephone contact or visitations with him. Efforts and struggles for getting visitation rights or telephone contact with family members of prisoners is a game they have imposed on us,” said Maleki.

“I would like to ask human rights organizations to step in independently and with impartiality towards groups and governments, and to defend the rights of those in prison,” she added.

“Even if they believe that Mr. Nourizad has committed crimes which deserve punishment, I believe 1.5 years in prison is sufficient punishment for him. Putting him in a place where he couldn’t say or do anything for 1.5 years is sufficient,” said Nourizad’s wife.

Regarding her visit with Nourizad on 18 March and his condition she said, “After his recall, they promised to move him to the General Ward, which, unfortunately, never happened. They kept him in the IRGC’s Ward 2-A by himself. I am sure now that he has not been transferred to Evin’s Ward 350, because I am in touch with the families of other prisoners in that ward.”

Mohammad Nourizad, a journalist and documentary filmmaker, was arrested on November 2009 in following the presidential election after writing letters critical of Supreme Leader Khamenei. Due to a deterioration in his health following successive hunger strikes in prison, he was transferred to the hospital on 16 December 2010. He was released 10 days later and transferred to his home. Nourizad was recalled to prison on 18 March and his contact with the outside world has been cut off since then.

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