In Iran, people end up in prison to save a species from extinction

In today’s Iran you can also end up in prison for fighting to save a species from extinction. It is January 24, 2018 when eight researchers, including two women, belonging to the Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundationa non-governmental organization based in Tehran and specializing in the conservation of large carnivores, come arrested by the Iranian police on suspicion of threatening national security by engaging in espionage activities. Researchers were collecting field data for a Persian cheetah conservation project Acinonyx jubatus venaticus, a critically endangered subspecies, reduced to no more than 50 specimens, all in Iranian territory. The presence of cheetahs was recorded through the use of camera traps, equipment now in common use all over the world, also for their low cost which makes them usable even in projects with a reduced budget. For the Guardians of the Revolution, however, they were tools specially placed in strategic sites in order to spy on Iranian military activities on behalf of foreign states such as the United States and Israel. A baseless accusation for anyone who knows and has used these cameras, unable to return an acceptable image for subjects placed more than a few tens of meters away.

Less than two weeks have passed since the arrest e Kavous Seyed Emami, professor of sociology and director of the NGO, is found dead in the Evin prison in Tehran. “Suicide” says the report of the authorities; but the family is denied the right to an independent autopsy confirming the official story. In November 2019, the conviction of the Revolutionary Court of Tehran arrives for the others (confirmed on appeal in February 2020): 10 years to Morad Tahbaz And Niloufar Bayani, respectfully founder and program manager of the NGO; 8 years a Houman Jowkar And Taher Ghadirian6 years a Sepideh Kashani, Amirhossein Khaleghi Hamidi And Sam Radjabi; 4 years ad Abdolreza Kouhpayeh (arrested a month after the others). The first four, initially literally accused of “sowing corruption on the earth“risked the death penalty.

International sources, not confirmed by the Iranian authorities, report that during the interrogations the link between the Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation and Thomas Kaplan, billionaire founder of Panthera, the largest of the organizations dedicated to the conservation of felines, based in New York. Kaplan is among the financiers of United Against Nuclear Iran, a pressure group that supports severe sanctions and regime change in Iran.. It is no coincidence that in 2017 the Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation expressed great concern in a letter to Panthera about the possible consequences deriving from the collaboration, albeit occasional, with an organization so openly aligned against Iran.

In some dramatic letters sent to the head of the judiciary Sadegh Larijanie made available in part in English since Center for Human Rights in Iran, Niloufar Bayani, 32, recounts the inhumane treatment she was subjected to in Evin Prison. The letters describe the physical and psychological torture, sexual harassment suffered by the researcher, who also spent eight months in solitary confinement. “Interrogations that lasted from 9 to 12 hours day and night. […] Every time I sought help from the authorities, the pressure, threats and acts of torture increased. “” I was more and more terrified that if I didn’t write what I [il mio interrogatore] he wanted, he would have violently sexually assaulted me. […] While I was completely losing the strength to resist their pressure, the agents dictated things to me which were then used against me “writes Bayani in his letters.

From the first weeks after the arrest, the media hype for call for the immediate release of the imprisoned researchers. Friends and colleagues have created a site to disseminate information without regime filters and collect appeals, first of all the one signed by over 1,100 Iranian environmentalists and conservation biologists and addressed to the head of the Tehran judiciary. In November 2018, more than 340 scientists from around the world, including the great primatologist Jane Goodall, called for his release, followed by similar appeals including those of the IUCN, the International Union for Conservation of Nature, of the Zoological Society of London. and, outside the scientific community, the UN and the European Parliament.

On 5 June, on the occasion of World Environment Day, Jane Goodall spoke out for a new appeal for clemency for the imprisoned researchers and called back the urgent need to resume efforts to save Iranian big cats from extinction, interrupted after their arrest in 2018. On the same date a group of nine ex-prisoners of Sepideh Kashani and Niloufar Bayani published an open letter of support for their cause: “we learned from them and were able to appreciate more deeply the sensitivity for the nature and environment of our planet and how it is the true wealth of each of its citizens. ” Among them too Kylie Moore-Gilbert, an Anglo-Australian anthropologist, arrested at Tehran airport on her way back to Melbourne after a conference and imprisoned for two years on suspicion of spying. Moore-Gilbert, released only after a prisoner swap, recently recounted in a book called The Uncaged Sky the physical, psychological and sexual violence to which inmates in Evin prison are subjected.

In a few weeks it will be five years since the arrest and six researchers are still in prison (Abdolreza Koupayeh was released in March 2020). What began as a story of hope and pride, a country in severe economic crisis that nevertheless finds the strength to try to save an endangered species, has become an unacceptable shame. Instead of being held up for example as promoters of a positive image of Iran, researchers at the Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation have been crushed by an unacceptable invasion of biodiversity conservation policy. The international scientific community must keep the light on this matter and raise its voice, also speaking for those whose word was taken away on January 24, 2018.

*Andrea Monaco is a research zoologist from Ispra