Neda Update: The Appeal for Her Fiance, Caspian Makan

The Latest from Iran (4 September): A Friday Pause?

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I don't think that this story, after all the iconic treatment of the shooting of Neda Agha Soltan on 20 June by Basij militia, has received much attention. From Amnesty International:

Tehran resident Caspian Makan, who was the fiancé of Neda Agha Soltan, a young woman killed in the recent protests in Iran, is in detention in Evin Prison. Amnesty International believes that he is being held because he witnessed her murder and later made a statement linking her killing to a member of Iran’s Basij militia. He is at risk of torture or other ill-treatment....

Caspian Makan was arrested at his home in north Tehran on 26 June. He had told BBC Persian TV, in an interview on 22 June that “Eyewitnesses and video footage […] clearly show that probably Basij paramilitaries […] deliberately targeted her”....

Caspian Makan is reported to have told his family that if he signs a “confession” saying that the PMOI [People's Mujahideen Organisation of Iran], a political body banned in Iran since 1981, killed her, then he may be released from Evin Prison in Tehran. Amnesty International fears that he  may be forced to sign such a “confession” under torture or other ill-treatment, given the pattern of human rights violations
following the election. He may be a prisoner of conscience, held for peacefully exercising his right to freedom of expression.

Amnesty have asked those who are concerned to send appeals for Makan's release to the Supreme Leader and to head of Iran's judiciary, Sadegh Larijani.

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