Immediate & Unconditional Release of Hamid Babaei

Mr.Hamid Babaei is a PhD student from University of Liege, Belgium. After returning to Iran for family visit on 27 July 2013, he was invited to intelligence services of Iran and arrested following his refusal to cooperate with the intelligence services of Iran.

He was charged with “communicating with a hostile government” and spying. In a 10 minute trial by Judge Salavati, he was sentenced to six years of imprisonment.

He completed the Master of Science degree in Industrial Engineering from the Iran University of Science and Technology in 2008 and obtained a PhD scholarship from the University of Liege, Belgium, in 2009.

Mr.Babaei, in the third years of his PhD program, in summer of 2013, with his wife returned to Iran for a family visit.

On first days of their return he was called to intelligence services of Iran and questioned about Iranian students’ activity in Belgium and asked for cooperation with the Intelligence Services.

Interrogating Iranian students that are studying abroad is not something unprecedented in
the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Omid Kokabee, an Olympiad Award postdoctoral student in nuclear physics at the University of Texas majoring in field of laser, was arrested in Iran after returning from the United States to visit his family in February 2011. Kokabee claimed that the system was trying to obtain his collaboration for Iranian nuclear program.

The manner of summoning and arbitrary arresting Iranian students studying abroad has been continued even during the new government of Hassan Rohani who promised the release of political prisoners and respects the civil rights.

Wednesday, (November 6, 2013), Mr. Ghashghavi had announced that Hassan Rohani, the president, invited officials from several ministries, including the Ministry of intelligence services and Foreign Ministry to form a committee for returning political activists
" who are living in abroad ".

Parliamentary deputy, of Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran's foreign minister, said that the reason for the refusal returning of many of Iranians is due to some of “propaganda from abroad opposition”.

Ghashghavi said: "I think many of these fears are self-imposed”. These fears have no root.

But contrary to Mr.Ghashghavi’s claims, Hamid Babaei had no political activity in abroad, and the only reason for his arrest is ignoring the threat from intelligence services and refusing to cooperate with them.

After his arrest, he was immediately transferred to Ward 204 of Evin and kept there for 20 days and then moved to Ward 209 and finally after a total of 35 days he was moved to the public Ward 350 of Evin prison on Wednesday, September 18, 2013.

On Saturday, December 21, 2013, in the Branch 15 of the Revolution Court chaired by Judge Salavati, Mr. Babaei was sentenced to six years in imprisonment and 4 years suspended in prison.

In this Court Mr. Babaei was denied the right of having a defense attorney and without his knowledge, IRI assigned him a lawyer, who during that 10 minutes of the trial was completely silent and Mr. Babaei was not given permission to defend his case personally.

Spying and communicating with hostile governments has always been a pretext to suppress dissidents and to ransom of prisoners.

At the moment, Mr. Shaheen Dadkhah, Mehrdad Sarjoyi , Dr. Rahman Ghahreman Pour, Omid Kokabee, Homayon Rostayi, Ali Amiri, Captain Yaghob Maleki, Ali Alayi and many other well-known citizens are in the prisons with the similar charges (Spying and communicating with hostile governments).

It seems, Mr. Hamid Babaei is one of the latest victims of this kind of self- motivated competitor detained by security service to crush resistance in the Islamic Republic of Iran.