Thanks to all of you for your continued support of the Alaeis. We are hearing good news out of Tehran: the Alaeis’ lawyer has filed another appeal and is hopeful that this one will be granted. Check out the article in the Boston Globe, also quoted below, for more details.

In the meantime, we are gearing up for action around the UN Universal Periodic Review, a mechanism that evaluates the human rights record of every country every four years. Iran will be reviewed February 15, 2010. We’ll need your help to make sure the Alaeis are on the agenda.

To highlight their case, we are organizing a National Call-in day next week — check back here for details on how you can contact UN Ambassador Susan Rice and urge her to ask the Iranian delegation about the Alaeis, and demand their release.

Lawyer says two Iranian doctors may soon be released on appeal

By Farah Stockman

Globe Staff / January 23, 2010

WASHINGTON – Two celebrated Iranian AIDS doctors with ties to Boston who were convicted in Iran of trying to overthrow the regime could soon be released from prison on appeal, according to their lawyer.

“Their case is very hopeful,’’ attorney Masoud Shafie said in a recent telephone interview from Iran.

Kamiar Alaei, who earned a master’s degree from the Harvard School of Public Health, and his brother, Arash Alaei, started a string of AIDS clinics in Iran and participated in the first State Department-funded exchange program with Revolutionary Iran in 2006, which included tours of medical facilities in Boston and meetings with Boston-area doctors.

Initially, the Iranian government appeared to support their work. But in June 2008, they were arrested and accused of “communications with an enemy government’’ and “seeking to overthrow the Iranian government.’’

In January 2009, after a one-day trial, Kamiar was sentenced to three years in prison and Arash was sentenced to six, according to Physicians for Human Rights, a Cambridge-based organization that has been petitioning for their release.

Thousands of people from around the world and hundreds from Boston’s medical community have organized events and written letters to push for their release, including former classmates at Harvard’s School of Public Health and the school’s dean, Barry R. Bloom.

“Their peers have kept their case in the news and on the front burner for human rights organizations, even though the human rights situation in Iran has gotten a lot more complex,’’ said Sarah Kalloch, director of outreach at Physicians for Human Rights.

Rumors of their release have been circulating for weeks.

In a recent telephone interview, Shafie, a prominent Iranian defense lawyer, said he launched an appeal “based upon the fact that America is not a hostile state and we are not at war with them.’’

The three-judge appeals panel accepted his request that the conviction be overturned, he said, and now he is waiting for final approval from the head of Iran’s judiciary, Sadeq Larijani.

It is unclear whether two others convicted with them – Silva Harotonian, a maternal health worker for an international organization, and Mohammad Ehsani, a filmmaker – will be released.