"It is only on the 86th day of imprisonment that the Iranian authorities allowed us to meet with a representative of the Azerbaijani Consulate," said recently liberated poets Shahriyar Hajizadeh (Del Gerany) and Farid Hussein in an interview with Objective TV.
The poets were invited to a festival of poetry in Iran by a local poet, Bahram Surgyun, and did not know that he was listed among the Iranian opposition.
They were arrested on their way back home. Blindfolded and wearing handcuffs, they were taken and held in the Security Service (Ettelaat) for almost three months.
The charges were absurd - supposedly they intentionally met with the son of the late poet Mohammad Shahriyar and campaigned for the unification of Azerbaijan.
"In fact, the local government cannot stand when intellectuals and scholars from Baku visit Iran. The Iranian secret services have a reason to show the government of Azerbaijan the extent of their hatred for the Turkish culture and language, but the innocent poets "got a hot hand," said Shahriyar.
The prison conditions were terrible - with illiterate criminals and mass murderers. Most of the prisoners knew the Azeri language and wanted to visit Baku at least once. In their view, the level of personal freedom is much higher in Baku than in Tabriz or Tehran.
On the 25th day of their arrest, the Iranian authorities finally allowed the detainees to speak to their parents on the phone, and on the 51st day they recognized the fact of their arrest.
The poets did not have a lawyer, and they did not even know the grounds for their detention. The investigators asked devious questions that did not clarify the nature of the charges.
On the 86th day the court sent the case back for further investigation, but in the absence of evidence (there was no evidence except for "testimony of the witnesses") the prisoners had to be released.
As acknowledged by the poets, their work is individual and deeply romantic, and politics is not their cup of tea. They do not intend to visit Iran in the current political regime. -17D-
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