Iranian of the Day

Persian2English – Hassan Asadi Zeidabadi, 28, is a political and human rights activist. He was born on April 27, 1984. He graduated from Allameh Tabatabai University, and is a member of the central committee of Tahkim-e Vahdat Alumni Student Association as well as the founder and the secretary of the Human Rights Committee of the Tahkim-e Vahdat alumni group.

Zeidabadi was arrested twice in the wake of the 2009 Presidential election protests. His first arrest occurred in November 2009, and he endured 40 days in ward 240 of Evin prison. He was eventually released on bail. His second arrest occurred in July 2010. He was detained and sentenced to five years in prison. Zeidabadi has argued that the punishment issued does not fit the accusations leveled against him, and has described the violations that took place during the investigation of his case. He has appealed the sentence but his request for appeal has gone unanswered.

Only hours before Zeidabadi was planning to leave for a short academic and training trip on institutions founded based on UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Geneva, he was faced with a ban on leaving the country.

He described the matter in an interview with Advar News: “The travel ban is an additional measure taken only under exceptional circumstances. When they have already set a bail there is no justification for the ban. I consider this act completely illegal and a clear example of violation of rights, such as the right to education and mobility. Such conducts shows that the ruling establishment is fundamentally against and hostile to all aspects of human rights, and, perhaps in the view of the authorities, one of my offenses has been using the national resources in this country to graduate from a human rights program. If this is the case, it would be better to deal with the academic community honestly, and cancel the human rights program whose introduction to the continuing education is a legacy of the reform era [the period of presidency of reformist President Mohammad Khatami, 1997-2005].”

In 2009, the Asian NGO’s network issued an open appeal to Ayatollah Amoli Larijani, the head of the Judiciary of the Islamic Republic of Iran, regarding the persecution of members of the student alumni group Advar Tahkim Vahdat. An excerpt of the statement reads:

"Hasan Asadi Zaidabadi, a respected and influential human rights defender and member of the Central Council of ADVAR, was arrested at 20:30 at his home in Tehran, on the basis of a summons from the Revolutionary Court, and taken to Evin prison, ward 209. Asadi is a prominent human rights activist, journalist, and spokesperson of the Committee to Investigate Arbitrary Detentions, as well as being in charge of the human rights committee of ADVAR. While Asadi had been summoned on a number of occasions, he had not previously been arrested in the context of the recent political upheavals. His arrest was apparently an attempt to suppress political protests on 4 November, the anniversary of the students’ movement in 1977, and a traditional day of celebration. Asadi Zaidabadi is being held in solitary confinement in a cell about 1 by 2 meters large. No clear information has been released about charges against him."

The International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran issued a statement in September 2010 titled: Arrests and Convictions of Rights Activists and Lawyers Escalate. An excerpt reads: “With the arrests of Ali Jamali and Zeidabadi, almost all members of the Central Council of ADVAR, a student alumni organization devoted to human rights and social enhancement, have been arbitrarily imprisoned.”

Zeidabadi has already endured 645 days behind bars. During this time he has been allowed only seven days of prison leave (in August 2011). Since his return to prison from furlough, Zeidabadi has been banned from in-person visits. However, the family is permitted one 20 minute visit a week from behind a glass window.