Scholars at Risk, the Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies of Pisa calls for the release of the researcher Ahmadreza Djalali, in Iranian prisons for five years, deprived of human rights and sentenced to death

Even from the Sant’Anna School in Pisa the voice of professors and researchers joined in the call launched by the University of Eastern Piedmont, the Karolinska Institute (Sweden) and the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Belgium) to demand the release of Ahmadreza Djalali, an eminent scholar of disaster medicine for five years detained in an Iranian prison and unjustly sentenced to death.

The call for support for the release of Djalali is spreading through social media and thanks to the international network Scholars at Risk (SAR), generating support and mobilization all over the world. It originates from the alarm for dr Djalali’s continued detention and for the repeated refusal by Iranian authorities to provide him with adequate medical care. The violation of the scholar's human rights is worrying: his health has seriously deteriorated since he was transferred to solitary confinement in November 2020.

The Scholars at Risk network therefore calls on the Iranian authorities to suspend the death sentence and ensure his immediate release so that he can receive the medical treatment he urgently needs. This is the link to join the campaign: https://www.scholarsatrisk.org/actions/ahmadreza-djalali-iran/.

Among the first signatories and supporters of the appeal launched by the international network of Scholars at Risk there are also the academics of the Dirpolis Institute (Law, Politics, Development) of the Sant'Anna School of Pisa, as part of the campaign promoted by Francesco Strazzari and Luca Raineri, respectively full professor and researcher in International Relations and Security Studies.

“The case of Ahmadreza Djalali, imprisoned for five years in the prisons of the Iranian regime - explains the researcher Luca Raineri - is unfortunately not an isolated case, but the manifestation of a worrying trend, common among authoritarian regimes, but growing within formally democratic countries, too, to stigmatize and attack intellectuals by pointing to them as political enemies. This is an attack on the freedom and dignity of research, but also a clear violation of the human right to freedom of expression”.

“It is important – Luca Raineri contends - that research and teaching institutions as well as the broader society stand up for the rights to freedom of research, teaching and expression throughout the world. The Scholars at Risk network, of which the Sant'Anna School of Pisa is a member, is the first network in the world that strives to raise awareness on the threats against scholars and researchers, but also to offer concrete solutions through the right to asylum, scholarships and visiting programmes”.