Banafsheh Nayebpour, daughter of Iranian-Dutch detainee, Zahra Bahrami announced that the drug-related charges against her mother are fabricated by Iranian authorities and her mother had to confess to the charges under torture.
Bahrami was sentenced to death in Iran last month for drug possession; however, her daughter told the International Campaign for Human Rights that the Islamic Republic authorities are trying to mull over the political charges for which she was actually arrested with the drug charge, in order to curb international attention being drawn to the case through the Dutch government.
Nayebpour reported that her mother has no history of drug use. “She doesn’t even smoke, let alone having drugs,” she said.
Nayebpour maintains that her mother was arrested on political charges for participating in street protests of 2009, but later this charge was completely left aside and the drug file was fabricated “to divert the attention of the public and human rights activists.”
Bahrami, a 45-year-old music graduate, was arrested in Tehran in the Ashura Day protest of December 2009. Last November, she was sentenced to death for drug-related charges. According to the court, 400 grams of cocaine and 400 grams of opium were found at her home.
Iran’s spokesmen for the judiciary and the foreign ministry have announced that Zahra Bahrami is sentenced to death for drug charges.
The sentence has not been finalized yet and is currently being reviewed by the prosecutor’s office.
Dutch foreign ministry has expressed concern about Bahrami’s case and called on its embassy in Tehran to follow up on the case and make every effort to assure she receives a fair trial.
