Friends, colleagues and supporters of Kamiar and Arash Alaei today repeat their call for all charges against the brothers to be dropped, and for the case against them to be dismissed.

Concerned friends have submitted their photographs of Kamiar and Arash, showing the much-loved Doctors Alaei in their work at the Triangle Clinic in Iran, and enjoying leisure time with friends during their studies at Harvard and Albany. Supporters around the world have joined in with photographs supporting the campaign – print out your own poster, and add your own photographs!

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty covered the six-month anniversary of the Alaei brothers’ detention in their broadcast and on their website today.

Rights activists and watchdog groups are marking the six-month anniversary of Iran’s detention of internationally known HIV/AIDS researchers and educators Arash Alaei and Kamiar Alaei…

In an interview with RFE/RL’s Radio Farda, Jonathan Hutson, a spokesman for the watchdog group Physicians For Human Rights, says the charges against the doctors are “illegitimate and politically motivated” and should be dropped immediately. Hutson says the two have already been detained two months longer than Iranian penal code allows. They are eligible for bail, Hutson says, but the judge has neither set bail nor scheduled a bail hearing.

In the past, Hutson says, Iran has released such detainees only after an outcry of public support from many nations.

“So to be clear,” he told Radio Farda, “it’s not just people in the United States but people from many countries who are urging Iran to release these doctors so that they can continue their life-saving work for the benefit of Iran as well as for the people of the world.”

Physicians for Human Rights says the charge against the Alaeis is likely to have a “chilling effect” on the Iranian medical community’s ability to share its work and learn from global experts.

More than 3,100 people from 85 countries have signed an online petition demanding their release, which can be viewed at IranFreeTheDocs.org.

The RFE/RL article also featured a photo from PHR’s photo petition.

Susannah Sirkin, PHR’s Deputy Director of International Policy and Advocacy, spoke last Wednesday at the vigil in NYC for the Alaei brothers. These are her comments:

Thanks for coming here today.

I’m Susannah Sirkin, Deputy Director at Physicians for Human Rights. PHR is a national organization that mobilizes health professionals to promote rights and dignity and advocate for the right to health for all people.

Since our founding in 1986, a core program of ours defends colleagues who themselves become victims of human rights violations for their work to provide health care and assure the most basic rights of the most vulnerable within populations.

Today, our colleagues, Drs. Kamiar and Arash Alaei, are sitting in a prison cell in Tehran. These young physicians have helped organize clinics for injecting drug users and sex workers, and have developed, supported and promoted an enlightened public health approach to the prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS within these most vulnerable and stigmatized groups in their home province of Kermanshah.  They advised the Iranian Ministry of Health, helped secure funds for the government’s HIV/AIDS programs, trained health workers in Iran, and neighboring countries — areas with the highest rates of injecting drug addicts in the world. They traveled to international AIDS conferences and have participated in meetings, conferences and higher education programs in the US. They were appointed as fellows by the Asia Society…AND they have defended imprisoned colleagues. It turns out they were among the first to sign PHR’s appeal calling for the release of imprisoned Bulgarian nurses in Libya in 2004.

In June of this year, these two doctors were taken from their mother’s home in Tehran and effectively “disappeared”. For more than two months, they had no contact with family or a lawyer. They are still not charged with any crime. We fear for their health, safety and well-being, knowing now, from their lawyer, who has finally been allowed to see them — once — that they are detained in the notorious section 209 of Evin prison — a section reserved for security prisoners, and with a long history of torture and ill treatment.

This week, the leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran are here to participate in the UN General Assembly — the collection of nations that came into being to enhance international cooperation, assure human rights and communicate across borders to promote global health and reduce poverty. What better time to announce the release of these two doctors, whom Iran should take pride in, rather than punish?

So today we are gathered here — doctors and medical students in their clinical garb — to appeal for the release of their colleagues. Over three thousand health professionals and concerned citizens from 85 countries have signed a petition calling for their release. We delivered this petition earlier today for President Ahmadinejad at the Iranian Mission to the UN. Colleagues in Brazil, El Salvador, South Africa, Egypt, Malaysia, Thailand, India and Iran joined this appeal. Other groups that have appealed include: International AIDS Society, HIV Aids Medical Association, AAAS, American Foundation for AIDS Research.

Please add your name and follow the case.

Susannah Sirkin speaks at the vigil

The following photos were taken by PHR’s Jonathan Hutson. About 30 doctors, medical students, and SUNY Albany School of Public Health students, wearing their white coats or school t-shirts, came to participate in the vigil and let the Iranian mission know that it’s time to free the Doctors Alaei.

Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) and a coalition of health and human rights groups held a silent vigil and press conference today at noon in front of the Iranian Mission to the United Nations (622 3rd Avenue, NYC) to call for the release of the Doctors Alaei. It is now known that they are being held, still without charge, in the notorious section 209 of Iran’s Evin prison. To date, the brothers have been allowed only one meeting with their attorney and family.

The vigil and press conference was timed to coincide with Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s visit to New York City for the UN General Assembly.

PHR Board member and VCU med student Ali Khan calls for the release of imprisoned Iranian colleagues at a vigil in front of Iran's UN Mission.