This is the report from Mehran Mahbobi of the
We went to the Japanese Consulate today, 19 March 2010, for the case of Jamal Saberi. We took informational materials from the International Federation of Iranian Refugees (IFIR) and a letter from No One is Illegal to protest Jamal’s detention with intent to be deported to Iran.
Mr. Koga from the Japanese Consulate invited us to sit down and talk, but tried to make us forget about Jamal and just amuse us with anything else except Jamal Saberi. He did not let us take pictures or film. He interrupted our colleagues any time they tried to talk about Jamal Saberi. But we were able to make ourselves clear about the case and what we are doing at the end.
We gave them a deadline of Monday March 22 to get response from Japan. Mr. Koga said there might be no response at all. I said no response is also a response, and we shall look forward for that too. I also said that to be deported and sentenced to execution by IRI is one thing, and this killing process that the Japanese authorities have done to Jamal, who has had two heart attacks by the age of 42, with a third one on the way, is also another thing. I called that a killing process that they have done to Jamal Saberi and all other Iranian Refugees especially, and mentioned that we know there are more than 300 Iranian dissidents in jail in Japan right now and all of them have applied for refugee status with no answer.
At the end, he tried to put us off from trying more just because there might be probably no answer from Japan at all. As I warned them that we would be there every day till Jamal is free, especially while his health situation is critical and might have third heart attacks after two other ones because of the hardship he has been through in Japan. He was illegally living there with so much pressure from underpaid work and trying to be active against the Islamic Republic for 20 years at the same time. I said to them if there would be other heart attacks and because of that he dies of it, that would be counted as a criminal act directly by Japanese government and we shall pursue it through International Court. He then said he would try to contact the justice minister and police authorities to pass on all information he got from us. He wanted to explain more about formality and asked us for more time but we said we shall be back on a daily basis till Jamal is free and we have to go now which we did and he promised if he gets any news from Japan he would contact us by telephone and let us know.
We were three gentlemen: Iraj Rezai, chairman of IFIR in east of Canada; Mohamad Kazemi as member of “No One Illegal” and IFIR, and I, Mehran Mahbobi, a freelance video clip taker and a refugee member of IFIR.
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