FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Media Contact:

Jonathan Hutson
jhutson [at] phrusa [dot] org
Tel: (617) 301-4210
Cell: (857) 919-5130

(Cambridge, Mass.) — Physicians for Human Rights is deeply concerned that purported ‘confessions’ that have been used by Iranian authorities to convict and sentence Dr. Kamiar Alaei and Dr. Arash Alaei may have been forcibly extracted.

Sources close to the trial have told PHR that one of the brothers had agreed under duress to make a videotaped statement prepared by Iranian authorities, who had promised that if he read the statement, both brothers would be set free.

Said Jonathan Hutson, J.D., Chief Communications Officer for PHR, “Given the isolation, months without charge and perfunctory trial, and the interrogation techniques and duress known to exist in other cases like this one in Iran, any purported ‘confession’ in the trial of the Alaei brothers must be viewed as tainted and unreliable.” The brothers have been held in Evin prison since late June 2008.

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Although Dr. Arash Alaei was slated to be among the speakers at the 17th International AIDS Conference in Mexico City, August 3-8, 2008, there will be an empty chair on the dais. Dr. Alaei and his brother Kamiar, also a leading physician in HIV/AIDS work, were detained by Iranian security forces without charge in late June. They are being held incommunicado; their whereabouts remain unknown.

The Drs. Alaei’s work has addressed the most disadvantaged populations and patients in [Iran]. Since 1998, Drs. Arash and Kamiar Alaei have been carrying out programs dealing with HIV/AIDS, particularly focused on harm reduction for injecting drug users in the war-torn province of Kermanshah, on the West Coast of Iran. The Alaei brothers have also sought the integration of prevention and care of HIV/AIDS, sexually-transmitted infections, and drug-related harm reduction, into Iran’s national health care system.

Marc Parry of the Albany Times Union reports:

The brothers have appeared in prominent international media outlets like the Washington Post and the BBC, which broadcast a documentary that featured their AIDS work.

The Asia Society named Kamiar Alaei a fellow in its Asia 21 Young Leaders Initiative. The program brings together “the most dynamic emerging leaders under the age of 40 from across the Asia-Pacific region.”

Asia Society Chairman Richard C. Holbrooke released a statement expressing concern about the detention of two brothers he called “leading figures in the HIV/AIDS community.”

Arash Alaei was supposed to join 25,000 people at an international AIDS conference in Mexico in two weeks, according to Human Rights Watch. He intended to give a presentation on Iran’s “innovative HIV program.”

“The focus of the meeting will be on where we are making progress in the fight against AIDS and where we are failing,” Joe Amon, HIV/AIDS program director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement. “Iran cannot be considered to be making progress if it is blatantly violating the human rights of two of its most valuable activists in this area.”

Iran, Free the Docs

Please sign the petition to Iran on this site calling for the release of the Drs. Alaei. Thank you for taking action.

(This was posted in longer format at The Daily Kos.)

Jonathan Hutson is the Chief Communications Officer at PHR.