A Letter Addressed To UN Special Rapporteur Dr. Shaheed

April 22, 2014 at 7:32pm

Dear Dr. Shaheed and Honorable World Leaders,

I am composing this correspondence to you in order to once again draw your attention to the plight of Mr. Kazemeini Boroujerdi.

Kazemeini Boroujerdi is a democratic reformer whom has been subjected to soul – shattering physical and psychological torture at the malevolent hands of the Iranian regime.

He was abducted from his residence by the regime’s security forces on the 8th October 2006.

Members of Mr. Boroujerdi’s family and close associates were mercilessly beaten during the course of the raid.

He has since been confined to the notorious Evin prison.

As you are all too aware, given your work, Evin is a place from which the stench of sadness, despair and death permeates from.

Mr. Boroujerdi has been held in prolonged solitary confinement, subjected to ceaseless beatings ,and various diabolical methods of psychological torture, in order to coerce him into recanting his liberal, secular, and tolerant philosophy.

He has been taunted on innumerable occasions with the threat of his impending execution.

His alleged ‘offenses’, as with all of the wretched souls huddled in the dark and cold corners of Iran, are baseless and without merit.

He has been deprived of his inherent and inviolable rights.

There has been no habeas corpus for Mr. Boroujerdi. There has been no due process. There has been no dignity.

Now, Kazemeini Boroujerdi rests his frail body on the cold stone floor of Evin. Cloaked in shadows, the only sound is the periodic screams of his nearby cellmates that pierce through the night, like a dagger thrust into the heart.

His crumpled body has suffered a massive heart attack and pulmonary edema has consequently resulted.

Kazemeini Boroujerdi has been provided with absolutely no medical care.

Deprived of even a single physician’s visit.

Kazemeini Boroujerdi is dying, Dr. Shaheed.

He must huddle in the suffocating silence and wonder what has brought him to this time and place.

He has devoted his life to egalitarianism, rights, liberty and secular republicanism.

Kazemeini has unrelentingly defended the rights of the long – persecuted religious Bahá’í minority.

He is a tireless advocate for the intrinsic rights of women, gays, political prisoners, ethnic minorities and religious minorities, as well as children.

Being a human rights advocate in Iran, means always having a noose draped around one’s neck, never knowing when it will be tightened.

As U.N. Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran, you may very well be the last person who can save Kazemeini Boroujerdi’s life.

It is within your power to continue to directly address the plight of Kazemeini with regime officials, and world leaders.

You can continue to utilize your respected and honorable position, Dr. Shaheed, to publicly bring attention to Kazemeini’s case,and place the regime in the untenable position, of having to explain why they refuse to provide even minimal medical care, to a respected and prominent human rights advocate and political prisoner.

You can now bend the arc of the moral universe towards justice.

Justice, reason, and righteousness call out for your continued attention and intervention in this dire matter.

You have taken up a great moral endeavor. You are a man of kindness, compassion, and conscience.

The greatest crime of all is allowing injustice to swirl around you unchecked, unquestioned, and unabated.

The light of world is sometimes dim but never extinguished.

Thank you for your consideration in this urgent matter.

May I leave you with Kazemeini in his own haunting words:

“When I see the misery and pain of my compatriots that the regime has annihilated their world under the name of God and prophet’s tradition, and their lives have been made bitter with the unreal slogans of the expert and fraudulent persons, I become more determined to stand up in the hidden, appalling and destroying prisons of Iran.”

Sincerely,
Ryan P. Christiano

Human Rights Advocate

“I am only one; but still I am one. I cannot do everything; but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.”

- Edward Everett Hale.

A Letter Addressed to UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran, The Honorable Dr. Shaheed,and a version of which has been disseminated to the offices of various world leaders ;including President Obama of The United States of America,The Right Honorable Prime Minister Cameron of Great Britain, The Honorable President Hollande of France, The Honorable Chancellor Merkel of Germany, The Honorable Prime Minister Harper of Canada,UN Secretary General The Honorable Ban Ki-moon, and The High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy for the European Union The Honorable Baroness Ashton.