Persian → English transcript

Hello, people of Iran. I am Mehrab Abdollahzadeh,

You are hearing my voice from Urmia Central Prison,

and this might be the last time you ever hear my voice. I was arrested by the

IRGC in Urmia during the 2022 protests,

and I was twenty- five years old when I was imprisoned.

From the first day of my arrest, through torture and threats,

they forced confessions out of me, and all of them were lies,

and none of the charges they brought against me are true,

and both they themselves know it and God knows that I am innocent.

Dear people of Iran, my brave compatriots,

you may not be able to understand me, or even imagine what hardships I have endured.

I have been under a death sentence for forty- two months, a sentence that if you

told it to a stone, it would melt it. A condemned prisoner,

every day and every night, thinks that at

any moment they might call his name now and take him away to execute him.

A condemned prisoner can only calm down a little after one o’clock at night,

so that maybe his thoughts and worries

will leave him alone and he can sleep for two or three hours.

It is very hard for you to grasp these conditions.

I swear, for the one who dies in the street,

it is much better than dying millions of times for 42 months.

And coming back to life. Today it is my turn,

tomorrow it is someone else’s turn,

and the day after tomorrow it might be one of your own loved ones.

Do not be indifferent, do not normalize it,

make my voice heard by all the people of the world. Proud people of Kord,

my dear fellow citizens, my first crime is being a Kurd. As long as I am alive,

I will be proud of being a Kurd and I know much better than you

what great hardships you have endured, and you have always been on the side of what

is right and you still are. This time too, defend my right, and do not let them

unjustly put the noose around my neck,

and my father and mother, my elderly father and mother…

put the noose around my neck and let my father and mother,

my elderly father and mother, be left grieving. Human rights organizations,

how long will you only express concern and condemn this kind of behavior and just

with a single story Do you just simply pass it by?

When will you really take action and firmly stand against all this oppression

and injustice… This call is from Urmia prison, and the caller is an inmate.

When will you really take action and firmly raise a banner against all

this oppression and injustice?

When will you defend my innocence and my rights?

Make my voice reach the whole world,

and this time prove that it is not just talk, that you will act. Supreme Leader, Mr.

Ejeyi, why is the law in Urmia different from the rest of Iran?

Why do you not address all this oppression that is being done to the people of

this province? Here in reality crimes are committed every day against these people.

They easily fabricate cases against me and people like me,

and even more easily they issue verdicts,

and with these verdicts the lives of many families are destroyed.

Here the first question

they ask you when they arrest you is whether you are Kurdish or Turk.

And because we are Kurdish we are considered

guilty. Since childhood I have heard that an innocent head goes to the gallows but

does not go on top of the gallows. But unfortunately, in Urmia Central Prison,

innocent people, many innocent people were hanged. If you truly believe in justice

and the people of this country matter and are respected by you,

then give everyone their rightful due. If I have committed a crime,

I am ready to be executed in public.

Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of Urmia, while you know I am completely innocent,

and the victim’s family also believes I am innocent,

and yet several times my families, in order to obtain

the pardon that I have had no role in that they have gone to maybe, through this,

take the noose off my neck,

but the plaintiff’s family has repeatedly stated verbally that they will consent,

but behind the scenes they are

being threatened by the IRGC in Orumiyeh and are forced not to give their consent.

What personal enmity do you have with me?

Why did you so easily fabricate a case against me and not allow

any of the judges to make

a fair judgment and You have made me an innocent victim in a case where you do not

have the slightest evidence, video, or photo against me. And because the defendant

is on the run, I became the victim in this case.

My dear father and mother, my dear brothers and sisters,

you have gone through so much for me,

and in these four years you have not had a single happy day.

I am proud that I am innocent, and you hold your heads high,

because you are ashamed of no one,

because I have not done wrong to anyone,

I have not ruined any young person’s life, I lived like a man, and I love you all,

and you are in my heart.

I have a question for all the people of the world. How is it that someone who raped

his own daughter and then murdered her is not considered a“ corruptor on earth,”

but I, Mehrab, twenty- five years old, who walked from my shop,

which is two minutes away from my home, am now declared a“ corruptor on earth” and

sentenced to death? Is this justice? My last words: I am innocent,

a case has been fabricated against me,

be my voice and spread my voice to all take it to the whole world.

If by my death all your problems are solved and your lives become happy,

I would like to die. This call is from Urmia Prison and the caller is an inmate.

My dear compatriots, I love you, hoping for freedom, Mehrab Abdollahzadeh.