International Campaign to Prevent the Execution of Mr. Soheil Arabi

Date: 02 December 2014

No: 514-LT-1400

His Excellency Ban-Ki Moon

Secretary General of United Nations

The United Nations

New York, NY 10017

Re: International Campaign to Prevent the Execution of Mr. Soheil Arabi and Other Prisoners of Conscience with Demands for their Immediate Release from Iranian Prisons

Your Excellency,

It is with a great sense of urgency that I appeal to the international community to prevent the execution of Mr. Soheil Arabi and other prisoners of conscience in Iran, and to facilitate their immediate release. My compatriots and I are extremely concerned about the continuous wave of executions and the declining health conditions of several prisoners of conscience. We are worried that these innocent men and women will not escape execution without an outcry from the Free World.

Mr. Soheil Arabi, a prominent Iranian blogger, was initially arrested by the Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) in November 2013, and subsequently placed in solitary confinement for posting messages on social media. Mr. Arabi has already been sentenced to death under the pretense of ‘insults to the prophet’, and has most recently been charged with ‘corruption on earth’ by the Supreme Court in Iran. According to some media reports, he has also been wrongfully accused of rape. These new charges, which under the laws of the Islamic Republic of Iran are severe enough to prevent a pardon, follow efforts by his family and human rights activists to seek a stay of execution, his retrial, and eventual release from prison.

Iranians at large hold the theocratic regime responsible for the disregard and contempt of human rights, as the Islamic Republic of Iran is ranked first in the world for the number of executions per capita. We are highly concerned about the disregard of freedom of speech, expression and belief that are often accompanied by excessive punishments. Whereas Iranians recognize the dignity and inalienable rights of individuals, the Iran National Council seeks, with the ultimate goal of restoring self-determination and a secular parliamentary democracy, the freedom of all prisoners of conscience, and the abolishment of capital punishment and torture.

We ask the international community for its support towards the realization of our noble objectives along with our ultimate vision of free, fair and transparent elections in Iran. We particularly expect the United Nations to weigh in on these crucial matters, and we urge Your Excellency to remind all concerned about their duty in upholding the most cherished values of the Free World as articulated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Yours sincerely,