Marco Lambertini, director general of the World Wide Fund for Nature International, noted in a statement this month that camera traps are a standard tool for modern conservation and expressed support for the men and women on trial: “We urge the Iranian authorities to ensure that they receive a fair and transparent trial that takes into account the practical realities of their work.”
But the trial will be neither fair nor transparent, and everyone knows it.
The charges that conservationists are using camera traps to spy on military installations is just a ridiculous front for the real issue: Iran’s environmental degradation, which has become so dire that the country cannot cope on its own.
In fact, Iran needs foreign assistance to solve this and many other looming issues, yet some centers of domestic power refuse to allow it. Others — the administration of President Hassan Rouhani and his proxies — actively court foreign know-how and capital.
When individuals from the outside world end up in prison, representatives of the regime fall back on the argument that hundreds of thousands of dual nationals come and go without incident. It’s a way of suggesting that those being held, who are denied the right to defend themselves, are guilty of something even if the charges are never clear.
Pressed on the matter at the Munich Security Conference this month, Iran’s then-foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, insisted that Iran has an independent judiciary. Groans from the audience quickly followed. The BBC reporter who was interviewing him wryly observed: “This is what you always say.”
Iran-watchers are tired of Zarif’s ridiculous claims of any legitimacy in these cases. A court with “Revolutionary” in its name — like the one that I was tried in and the one the environmentalists are now facing — cannot be free independent. In fact, trials like these are actually designed to demonstrate the impunity of those in power.
The goal is to suppress — to suppress information, movement, communication.
Authoritarian leaders, though, have not caught up with the realities of the modern world. They might realize one day how ridiculous these trials appear to the outside world, but the empty spectacle will go on as long as Zarif or others persist in defending the baseless arrests of dual nationals or those accused of having foreign contacts.
Concerned onlookers should be hammering at one obvious point: Any trial in which there is no jury, no credible evidence and no witnesses cannot be just.
In the meantime, though, innocent lives are shattered. The ongoing abuse and harassment of the environmentalists and their families underscore the human toll of Iran’s judicial corruption.
Soon after the group was arrested in early 2018, one of them, Kavous Seyed Emami, a popular professor and Canadian citizen, died while in custody. Authorities reported that his death was a suicide, but there is no evidence to support that claim.
Since then, Seyed Emami’s wife, Maryam Mobeini, has been barred from leaving Iran. The couple’s sons have left and have been fighting a public campaign to free their mother, who is not accused of any crime and has cooperated fully with the investigation. Just last week her travel ban was extended by Iran’s judiciary without explanation.
Another Canadian resident, Niloufar Bayani, is among the group that has now been held for over a year. In the first trial session in January, Bayani changed the trajectory of the trial when she reportedly announced that she had been forced to make false confessions under physical and psychological duress while being kept in solitary confinement without the benefit of legal counsel.
She has not attended any of the trial sessions since. But the damage has been done: Such an outburst, and at great personal risk, is a reminder of the dismal state of Iranian “justice.” People around the world are starting to take notice.
Ultimately, it’s the court of public opinion that can do most to help the environmentalists and others accused of high crimes to win their freedom. The environmentalists got some unexpected support when blockbuster movie star Leonardo DiCaprio tweeted his concern to his nearly 19 million followers this month.
As I write in my book, American pop culture is a powerful presence in Iran, and U.S.-produced films are often aired on state television. Hollywood’s appeal knows no borders, and its help matters.
Prominent people — politicians, entertainers and athletes — can have a tremendous impact in these cases. I experienced it firsthand. I hope that we’ll see more such support for the environmentalists from highly visible individuals; the more of it there is, the sooner they’ll be released. Unfortunately, though, that doesn’t mean it won’t happen again.
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