05/17/2011
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.