- 21 January 2009
- 0 Comments
- Diplomacy, Human Rights in Iran, Persian Gulf
Brothers Arash and Kamyar Alaie were imprisoned by the Iranian government in June of 2008 and faced trial on December 31st 2008 in a private hearing in Tehran. The two Iranian doctors were doing AIDS/HIV research in Iran.
The Iranian government claimed that the two doctors and two other unnamed individuals were working with the CIA, in a $32 million plan to overthrow the Iranian government. The government claimed that the doctors were working to stir up a social revolution.
Arash was given six years and his brother three. There is no evidence to explain the difference in their sentencing. Their charges are based on Article 508 of Iran’s Penal Code which allows up to ten years’ imprisonment for “cooperation with an enemy government,” though the Penal Code is silent as to what constitutes “cooperation” or what is meant by an “enemy government.”