Source:
April 13, 2010

Mohsen Karami, the brother of One Million Signatures Campaign member Mahboubeh Karami, discusses his only encounter with his sister since her arrest [42 days ago]. It occurred on March 21, 2010 for the Iranian New Year. The meeting lasted approximately 20 minutes.

When Mahboubeh Karami first saw her brother, she said to him, “My interrogator has hit me many times on the head with a bottle of water.”

When their mother passed away last year, Mahboubeh Karami was imprisoned then too, but according to her brother, she was not anticipating the arrest since she was not involved in any for form of activism work during that year.

[After their meeting,] he described Mahboubeh Karami as depressed and extremely sad to have lost her mother and was not able to be present in the hospital during the last days of her life.

The anniversary of their mother’s death was on April 8, 2010, and Mahboubeh Karami’s request for a permit to attend the ceremony was rejected. [Prison officials] have now transferred her to ward 209 of Evin prison, and other prisoners have informed the family that her physical condition is getting worse. The charges against Mahboubeh Karami has not yet been announced. Her brother stated,”I am very worried about this. I was ready to hear what [crime my sister has committed] so I can get the chance to defend her. If I do not know what she is being charged with, how am I able to defend her?”

Mohsen Karami has written a letter to Tehran’s Prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi, demanding justice. He hopes to at least receive an answer to why his sister was kept in solitary confinement for a long period of time. He further stated, “We have many problems in our family, including our father’s deteriorating health and the imprisonment of Mahboubeh [for 42 days] without the right to attorney. I do not know why they treat her like this.”

Translation: Siavash Sartipi