Dear Mr. Guy Ryder,

With warm greetings,

You have probably been informed that Jalal Hosseini, Mohsen Hakimi and I faced the appeal trial on Sunday, March 11, 2007 at the Division Seven of the Kurdistan Province Appeal Court.

I am writing to you about some of the issues that took place during the trial.  The three of us, along with our lawyer, Mr. Mohammad Sharif, according to the court’s summons, appeared at the Kurdistan appeal court at 9:00 am.  After some delays, our lawyer was told that Mr. Mohammad Mostofi, the presiding judge of the division 7 is on vacation. To follow the required procedure, Mr. Sharif informed the branch’s secretary of our presence in the court and the intention to leave but the secretary told us, “You should wait a little longer so I inform the court’s chief”. We waited until 10:05 am when they informed us that the hearing was going to take place. The hearing took place at 10:45 a.m. with judge Sadeghi presiding. In order for you to understand the importance of this shuffling I should give you brief background information about the role of these two judges in the delaying of our trials and persecutions of the arrested activists on May 1^st 2004.

Mr. Sadeghi, at the time of our arrest on May Day 2004, was the prosecutor of the City of Saqez and our arrest order was issued by him. In the second round of our court hearings, in October 2006, which took place at the Saqez Revolutionary Court, he was the chief of justice department in the city of Saqez. In that trial, Mr. Shayegh, a substitute judge, sentenced me to 4 years imprisonments and Messrs Jalal Hosseini, Mohsen Hakimi and Borhan Divargar each to two years jail. All these sentences were confirmed after approval by Mr. Sadeghi. Now, the same person is the presiding judge of our appeal trial despite the fact that he was in charge of sentencing us in the first place.

It’s useful to briefly talk about Mr. Mohammad Mostofi, the presiding judge of the division 7 of the appeal court of Kurdistan Province, so you would realize why he was replaced with Mr. Sadeghi. You perhaps remember that at the first trial that was chaired by judge Tayari in Farvardin 1384 (April 2005) we were sentenced to the following: I was sentenced to five years jails and three years in exile in the city of Ghorveh. Mr. Jalal Hosseini was sentenced to three years, and Messrs Mohammad Abdipour, Mohsen Hakimi and Borhan Divargar each to two years imprisonment. Our lawyers protested against these sentences and appealed them. Mr. Mohammad Mostofi, who was the chief of the division 7 of the appeal court of the province, along with Mr. Hamid Reza Hassan Pour, who was the court counselor, fully acquitted us from all charges claimed by the Saqez court. In fact, our second trials were imposed on us after Mr. Mostofi had acquitted us.

My request is that to provide this letter to legal experts and inform them of the content of it, so they can inform us where in the world such trials have taken place. Has there been an appeal court presided by a judge that had also issued the original verdict? Have there been cases where the chief of the court is the same person that from the very beginning issued the arrest warrants against us for trying to organize the international workers day? Given such methods, could we expect just verdicts?

Respectfully yours,

Mahmoud Salehi- Saqez

1/1/ 1386

3/21/ 2007

cc: Mrs. Anna Biondi and Mr. Janek kuczkiewicz