’NO TO EXECUTION’; an open letter to the Italian Prime Minister visiting Iran

Mrs. Sho’leh Pakravan, the mother of Reyhaneh Jabbari has posted a critical open letter on the internet criticizing Italian Prime Minister Mateo Renzi’s visit to the mullahs’ ruled Iran.
Reyhaneh Jabbari was a 26-year-old girl that was executed in 2014 for defending herself against an attempt by an agent of the ministry of intelligence and security (MOIS) to rape her. Reyhaneh was 19 years old on that day when she was lured by this diabolical man… and the events led to his death and the arrest and 7 years imprisonment of Reyhaneh, and finally to her heartbreaking death by hanging. 

                                                       Reyhaneh Jabbari

 The following is the translation of Mrs. Pakravan’s open letter.

 Italian Prime minister is visiting Iran, perhaps to relay the message of thousands of people from around the world who have been stunned and frustrated of hearing so many executions are being carried out in this country. Or perhaps his visit would carry Pope’s message who has called for abolition of death penalty all over the world. He is probably coming to Iran to say stop public executions, or maybe he wants to say at least stop the execution of juvenile offenders.

Or maybe the subject of execution would not come up in his talks with his counterparts, instead he is going to talk about the amputation of limbs in prisons as a punishment. No, maybe he wouldn’t say anything about that either, talking about such things would sour their meetings, but he could talk about preventing religious and ethnic minorities from being evicted from universities, or perhaps he would urge the authorities to release the dissident cleric Ayatollah Boroujerdi and Mohammad-ali Taheri who have been put behind bars for having distinct beliefs than the ruling elite. Or he may not even talk about that. But then, why is he coming anyway? Oh! I see, he probably wants to go to prisons and ask about political prisoner, Narges Mohammadi and find out about her health and how would it taste to be separated from her two small children for about two years, or may visit Hossein Ronaghi, another political prisoner who is on hunger strike despite severe kidney failure. Or he wants to know about Miss Atena Faraghdani, an artist and a child’s rights activist who has been put behind bars for 12 bloody long years just for her critical paintings.

                                                     Mohammad-ali Taheri

 He would probably say that torture is a bad practice. People must not be tortured or to be put through anything that is perceived as torture, it is wrong to beat people or to hang them from ceiling.

No, I don’t think he would visit prisoners, he probably drives around streets of Tehran and tell his Iranian counterparts, during his meetings, to do something for these street kids who are running around barefooted and beg people for some money. No, this is not true, his car windows are tinted dark and he wouldn’t be able to see anything outside.

                                                      Ayatollah Boroujerdi

 Truly, more I think, less I understand why he is coming to Iran. The only possible reason would be for money, trade, oil, sanctions and things like that. I don’t know. Perhaps this prime minister is a good man and talks about all these issues. In that case he would place himself in the heart of future Iranians and people would remember him as a good man. 

The Italian Prime Minister or any other official who visits Iran must remember that Iran has the highest number of executions in the world per capital. In Iran extracting confessions are still done under torture and duress. It is good to remind them that ordinary Italian people and pope expressed great concern over the execution of my daughter, Reyhaneh and demanded her death sentence be revoked. But despite all those cries, my Reyhaneh was hanged.
And now, the Italian artist, Johnny Rodary inspires me. He wants to build shops in the city to sell hope to people. I will visit his shop to buy some of his hopes, regardless of the fact that all my hopes and inspirations were buried when my Reyhaneh was laid to rest. No, as the matter of fact I will buy all his stocks of hope so it would encourage me to think that this Italian Prime Minister’s visit to Tehran is for human rights and services as well as financial and economic issues, so it would give us hope that this visit has some good aspects and not only pocketing our country’s wealth in return for keeping silence against an infectious disease called EXECUTION.
Perhaps he, too, would stand on our side and accept our invitation to wish for an Iran without EXECUTION, and say NO TO EXECUTION, NO TO TORTURE…