Arash Jowhari, poet and labor activist; arrested by the IRGC’s intelligence division forces on Oct. 6, 2020, at his own place and then got transferred to Evin Prison.
As reported by Farsi-speaking mass media, he has published an open letter in which he informs that the intelligence division of IRGC has fabricated a political case against his wife, Shadi Gilak, who has recently been fired from her nurse position and sent to prison to serve her one year sentence in order to put him under pressure. “In the course of my case proceedings, IRGC’s intelligence division, adopted his all too familiar scenario, that is, fabricating a security case for civil activists and their families, now against my wide, Shadi, by opening a separate case against her as a pressure tool used against me,” said by him in the same letter, published on Jan. 11. This labor activist continued by saying that at the time of persecutions, he was threatened by the persecutors that if he did not consent to false confessions, there would be a political case opened against her and she would be dismissed from her nursing job. In the same letter, he deems his court a show trial reminding that later, the judge had told his family “the sentence issued was out of my hand.” It is worth mentioning that Shadi Gilak, Arash’s wife, was charged with “propaganda against the regime” for which she was sentenced to one year of imprisonment and submitted herself to Evin Prison to serve this sentence on Jan. 8, 2023.
In another report by Farsi-speaking mass media, on Oct. 17, 2020, and by the issuance of a sentence at the 26th division of Tehran Revolutionary Court, chaired by Judge Iman Afshari, and for the charge of “administrating illegal groups with the aim of destabilizing national security,” he was sentenced to ten years of discretionary custodial imprisonment, for the charge of “collusion and conspiracy against national security,” to five years of the same type of prison sentence, and, finally, for the charge of “propaganda against the regime,” for another year of the same type of imprisonment (in sum, 16 years of imprisonment). His sentence is considered one of the most draconian political sentences issued by the judiciary system in that year. It is worth mentioning that ten years of this sentence is enforceable. From the time of arrest until now, he has spent two years and five months in Evin and Rajayi’Shahr Prisons. At the Court of Appeal, his sentence was reduced to seven years and six months of enforceable imprisonment as the final verdict.
Since the first day to this date, 3/7/2023, however, he has been serving time in prison for 29 months without being granted the right to prison leave. He was kept in solitary confinement for over two months, while being barred from the right to an attorney, and through that period, his family had no update on his status, after which, he was transferred to Evin Prison, ward 8. On Oct. 15, 2022, in the course of Evin Prison arson event and its subsequent bloody crackdown of the prisoners, while he was injured in the head following baton strikes he had received from a prison guard, he was sent to Rajayi’Shahr Prison without any medical care, and is still there in detention in hall 30, ward 10, the same prison.
On Dec. 2, 2021, his mother released a video on his son’s birthday, declaring that about two months before that date, Alghasi Mehr, the then head persecutor of Tehran, had made an appearance at Evin Prison, meeting a number of prisoners, where he had promised Arash Jowhari to agree with his prison leave. Following this promise, his mother would come to Tehran every week from Moghan, where she lived, and despite all pursuits, received no answer and eventually told that her son’s prison leave request had been rejected. While serving this sentence, he has still been harassed and mistreated in prison, and even excluded from the judiciary circular letter of the so-called “public pardon,” through which many prior political prisoners or arrested protestors were released from prisons.
As reported by Iran Writers Association on Aug. 18, 2022, the deputy of the assistant persecutor supervising this political prisoners, summons Arash Jowhari (along with Arash Ganji, another political prisoner, translator, and member of Iran Writer Association, released from prison following the same public pardon) to the disciplinary council, in presence of the prison chief, along with the head of ward 8 manager, and the judiciary liaison, at the prison head’s office, and interrogated them both over the release of an audio file about the conditions of ward 8. They both clearly asserted that not only had they not anything to do with the release of this file, but also they were totally unaware of its existence. On Feb. 27, 2023, a group of his friends started a campaign on social media with jointly writing and publishing a letter in which they demanded his release. In this letter, one reads: “We ask all freedom-seekers and human rights activists to rise against the news boycott about political prisoners like Arash Jowhari, and prevent the fate of Arash and prisoners of his kind from being neglected amidst the political maneuvers of the regime after having massacred over 500 people in the course of “Woman, Life, Freedom Movement,” guised as pardoning a number of political prisoners. Struggle for liberating Arash Jowhari and all other political prisoners is a key part of neutralizing such demagogical political maneuvers and also the continuation of this movement.”
Arash is a poet, as said before, and in this limited space, we can read two of his works, in what follows. The first poem goes: “Empty my head / of everything / between death and life / hope is there, in the wasteland of life / hope / the talking one / with no word / of humans’ bless / the same taken as spoil, by hope-slaughterers / and “your” eyes / the twinkle of hope for me, in this night-stricken life / Love is a fire, in your voice / the waiting hope in your eyes / and prison / freedom, tasted in your absence;” and his other poem, written in prison, reads: “Sharing bosoms with you / I desire death out of revolt / and life, as a fig tree / shouldered by amnesic rocks / I desire the world / the world indeed / as if a vendor kid / showcasing love high, on his seasoned ruins / and human indeed / of love and of belief / recasting the world, equal anew.”
