By Jennie Matthew
THE GOVERNMENT has confirmed that it has been involved in international efforts to release 13 Jews detained in Iran since March 1999, 10 of whom are due to appear in a court of appeal today.
The men, who include a rabbi, a ritual slaughterer, religious leaders and several teachers, are from Shiran and Isfahan in southern Iran. They were arrested between January and the eve of Passover last year, on charges of spying for the “Zionist regime” (Israel) and “world arrogance” (the USA).
They claim all they were doing was e-mailing friends and relatives in Israel. Held in Shiraz and Isfahan, they were denied access to lawyers and relatives for five months. An Iranian judge insisted that the Jews could only be represented by the state.
“The Cyprus government, for about a year, along with the UN, the EU and judiciaries all over the world, has called on the Iranian government to help and assist us in our request for their release,” an Israeli diplomat said yesterday.
“Cyprus and Iran enjoy very good relations and Cyprus respects the principal of non-intervention in internal affairs of Iran and the judiciary system. Any efforts we can make, to create a better climate, we follow,” Foreign Minister Yiannakis Cassoulides told the Cyprus Mail yesterday.
The court of appeal is expected to come up with a response to the appeal of 10 of the Jews today, a hearing — along with a mild improvement in treatment of the prisoners — which diplomatic sources have attributed to international pressure. Three of the thirteen have already been released.
But government sources were yesterday reluctant to admit to exerting any “pressure” on Iran, suggesting any involvement was friendly and discreet.
The matter has been treated with the utmost urgency by the Israeli government.
“[The imprisonment] which the Iranian Jews have suffered constitutes a grave in justice and a gross violation of human rights. Israel will not rest until all the prisoners are released,” a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem said last month.
“Iran cannot be accepted as a member of the international community as long as Jewish prisoners are rotting away in prison, when they have done now wrong,” the Israeli government said.
The United States has been vigorously campaigning on behalf of the prisoners, while also trying to thaw its relations with Tehran. Earlier this year the Clinton administration lifted an import ban on Persian carpets, caviar and pistachios.
Iran’s reformist president Mohammed Khatami has offered the West some hope but the prisoners’ plight remains critical.
“I don’t know what will happen. The past doesn’t leave much room for hope, but we always hope for the better,” Israeli diplomatic sources said yesterday.
The Iranian Embassy in Nicosia was yesterday unavailable for comment.
There are about 30,000 Jews who live in Iran.
