* Still unclear why diplomat Asadi was arrested
* UN, rights groups have described abuses at Evin
* Minister: Asadi’s detention was a “misunderstanding”
By Louis Charbonneau
UNITED NATIONS, May 7 (Reuters) – A senior Iranian diplomat
linked to Iran’s reformists has been detained for nearly two
months and is in solitary confinement at Evin Prison, a facility
rights advocates have criticized for prisoner abuse, sources
told Reuters on Tuesday.
Bagher Asadi, who was previously a senior diplomat at Iran’s
U.N. mission in New York and was most recently a director at the
secretariat of the so-called D8 group of developing nations in
Istanbul, was arrested in mid-March in the Iranian capital,
sources said last week on condition of anonymity.
“He is being held in solitary confinement in Evin Prison,” a
source told Reuters, adding that it was still unclear what the
grounds were for his detention.
Iran’s U.N. mission did not respond immediately to a request
for comment.
Iran’s judiciary and Foreign Ministry have confirmed the
61-year-old Asadi’s arrest but given no details as to why he was
being held. The sources who spoke to Reuters about Asadi’s
detention say it may be linked to Iran’s June 14 presidential
election.
A February 2013 report by U.N. special rapporteur on human
rights in Iran, Ahmed Shaheed, described a number of cases of
alleged torture and abuse, including beatings and solitary
confinement, at Evin Prison.
The New York-based advocacy group Human Rights Watch has in
the past called on Iran to end solitary confinement and other
abuses at Evin Prison.
In January 2004, Asadi wrote an opinion piece that ran in
the New York Times in which he made clear his affinities with
the reformist philosophy of reformist Mohammad Khatami.
Iran’s reformists have been sidelined since Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad, the conservative former mayor of Tehran, won the
presidential election in 2005, replacing Khatami.
Some analysts say Iran’s Islamic clerical leadership is
worried about the risk of serious unrest in the June 14 election
and is cracking down in advance.
Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi has suggested
Asadi’s arrest may have been a mistake.
“It’s unfortunate that there has been a misunderstanding
regarding Mr. Bagher Asadi, one of the highly skilled and
valuable experts in the foreign ministry who has a good track
record and from whom we have seen nothing but efforts to secure
the country’s interests, and we are hopeful this
misunderstanding will be resolved,” Salehi said.
Former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed Asadi in
2003 to a panel of eminent persons on U.N. relations with civil
society.
In March U.N. rapporteur Shaheed said Tehran’s silencing of
journalists and opposition leaders could jeopardize the
legitimacy of the presidential election in June.
Opposition leaders Mehdi Karoubi and Mirhossein Mousavi,
both candidates in the 2009 presidential election, are under
house arrest following mass protests over alleged fraud in the
re-election of Ahmadinejad that year.
(Additional reporting by Yeganeh Torbati; Editing by Cynthia
Osterman)
