A letter from imprisoned Iranian lawyers urging immediate medical care for their colleague, Taher Naqavi, and an urgent appeal to the international legal community to intervene.
September 22, 2025 — The following letter, written from within the walls of Iran’s Evin Prison by two imprisoned human rights lawyers, Mohammad Najafi and Seyed Mohammadreza Faghihi, is both an urgent plea for action and an act of profound moral courage. At great personal risk, they have chosen to speak out on behalf of their imprisoned colleague, Taher Naqavi, a fellow lawyer who has been imprisoned since February 2024 and is gravely ill. Like so many political prisoners in Iran, he is being systematically denied the critical medical care his condition demands.
Naqavi, suffering from multiple spinal fractures and severe prostate disease, remains incarcerated in conditions that blatantly and intentionally ignore his medical needs, in violation of Iran’s own laws and its international legal obligations.
Primary source documents such as this letter, penned under surveillance and threat of further punishment, are vital sources of information and carry great weight; they are the voices of those who fight for justice, even while they are unjustly imprisoned. Najafi, imprisoned since 2018, and Faghihi, serving a five-year sentence, were both imprisoned for their defense of human rights and could face additional charges, torture, or any manner of retribution by the authorities for writing it.
Their letter reflects the enduring commitment of Iran’s imprisoned lawyers to their professional and ethical duties. It is also a testament to the collapse of legal safeguards in the Islamic Republic’s judicial system and the dangerous normalization of medical neglect as a form of silent punishment. It calls attention not only to the urgent case of Naqavi, but also to the broader pattern of systemic abuse faced by political prisoners in Iran and the harsh treatment for any lawyer in the Islamic Republic who tries to defend legal and human rights.
Najafi and Faghihi make a direct appeal to the global legal community to intervene on Naqavi’s behalf. Bar associations and legal institutions charged with upholding the rule of law, protecting the independence of the legal profession, and defending fundamental rights are in a unique position to act. The systematic denial of medical care to imprisoned lawyers in Iran constitutes a humanitarian crisis and a direct attack on the legal profession itself.
