2007: Iran: Yaghoub Yadali
Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic
His Excellency Ayatollah Sayed ‘Ali Khamenei,
The Office of the Supreme Leader
Shoahada Street, Qom, Islamic Republic of Iran
Email: info@leader.ir , istiftaa@wilayah.org
15 November 2007
Your Excellency,
In September 2007, novelist Yaghoub Yadali was sentenced to one year in prison on charges of “insult”. The conviction stems from his depictions of characters from the Lor ethnic minority, of which Yadali is a member himself, in his fiction.
Yaghoub Yadali is a prominent writer, and was awarded the Press Critics Annual Prize in 2001. Since his arrest Yadali has been banned from publishing, and his books have been withdrawn from the market. He has also been dismissed from his job, and is now unemployed and without financial support.
Norwegian PEN protests the one-year sentence against writer Yaghoub Yadali for his fictional writings, and demand that all charges against him are dropped in accordance with Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which Iran is a signatory.
Confident that you, Your Excellency, will take action accordingly, I remain,
Yours sincerely
Elisabet W. Middelthon
Chair Writers in Prison Committee, Norwegian PEN
Copies to:
The President, His Excellency Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
The Presidency, Palestine Avenue,
Azerbaijan Intersection, Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran
Fax: Via Foreign Ministry: +98 21 6 674 790
(mark: «Please forward to H.E. President Ahmadinejad»)
Email: dr-ahmadinejad@president.ir via website: www.president.ir/email
The Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Oslo, The Norwegian Embassy in Tehran
The Iranian Embassy, Oslo
