In an oral statement delivered to the United Nations Human Rights Council, the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran and the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) expressed extreme concern “at the rampant culture of impunity and lack of accountability that protects and encourages acts of torture” in Iran. The statement, delivered March 12, 2013, ...
As Iranians around the world prepare to celebrate the new year, hundreds of prisoners of conscience remain behind bars in Iran. The Persian New Year, Nowruz, is the most important holiday in Iran, beginning at the moment of the vernal equinox. While the news website Kaleme reports that a dozen political prisoners have been granted ...
This week, the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran joined 16 other human rights organizations in a joint letter asking the United Nations Human Rights Council to renew the mandate Special Rapporteur on the situation of Human Rights in Iran Ahmed Shaheed. ...
The present report is the second to be submitted to the Human Rights Council, pursuant to Council resolution 16/9, and communicates developments in the human rights situation of the Islamic Republic of Iran that have transpired since the submission of the Special Rapporteur’s second interim report to the 67th session of the General Assembly (A/67/369) ...
United Nations Special Rapporteur Ahmed Shaheed elicited a blustering response from the Iranian delegation when he presented the findings of his most recent report on the situation of human rights in Iran to the Human Rights Council yesterday. In remarks both yesterday and today, Iranian delegation leader and Iranian Human Rights Council head Mohammad Javad ...
Mahabad Intelligence Office forces have arrested several Kurdish civil activists and journalists over the past few weeks, transferring them to the Mahabad Intelligence Office’s Information Unit and telling their families not to talk about the arrests, a local source told the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran. The identities of several of those arrested ...
Continuing the latest crackdown on journalists that began on January 26, Iranian officials banned three publications in Tehran today and arrested three more journalists this week. Since January 26, twenty journalists have been arrested in Iran. “Our aim is to prevent the emergence of a sedition prior to the elections,” Iran’s Intelligence Minister Heydar Moslehi ...
Today, March 6, Iranian officials banned Aseman weekly, Tajrobeh monthly, and Mehrnameh monthly, and security forces entered the Maghreb Newspaper offices and arrested the newspaper’s license holder Mohammad Mehdi Emam Naseri and political desk editor Alireza Aghaee Rad. Earlier this week, on March 3, security forces arrested an editor at the social science monthly magazine ...
While imprisoned Iranian lawyer Abdolfattah Soltani has technically been granted furlough, judicial authorities have set his bail so high as to effectively deprive him of it, his daughter told the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran. The bail set for his furlough is approximately US$1 million, an amount entirely out of reach of Soltani’s ...
Continuing the latest crackdown on journalists that began on January 26, Iranian security forces arrested Mohammad Javad Rouh on Sunday, March 3. Rouh, currently an editor at the reformist monthly magazine Mehrnameh, has worked on the political desk of reformist newspapers for years. Since January 2013, 18 journalists have been arrested and sent to Evin ...
Nikahang Kowsar is a blogger, journalist, and political cartoonist who doesn’t shy away from controversy. In his cartoons, he frequently criticizes the Iranian leadership and draws attention to very sensitive issues, including human rights abuses. In today’s podcast, he talks to us about one cartoon in particular that drew in death threats, and even arrest ...
Last Tuesday, February 19, the Iranian Intelligence Ministry hinted at an upcoming broadcast of confessions from imprisoned journalists when it issued a third statement regarding the recent roundup of journalists in Iran. In the statement, the ministry bolstered its accusations of espionage and relations with a “network” related to a “British Government Spy Organization.” ...
Two female Kurdish political prisoners at Orumiyeh Prison have faced repeated summonses to the Prison Intelligence Unit this year, a local human rights activist told the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran. Interrogators have pressured the women to provide televised confessions and to cooperate with the Intelligence Ministry, the activist added. ...
The Iranian Intelligence Ministry announced in its third statement on Tuesday, February 19, that in recent days more journalists have been summoned and interrogated about their relations with the “British Government Spy Organization.” Previously, 16 journalists were arrested beginning in late January, and their families fear they may have been pressured into false confessions while ...
A 30-year-old man has been detained for four months without trial on charges related to writing a blog in Shiraz, his sister told the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran. Kaveh Taheri was arrested on September 23, 2012, and charged with “acting against national security” and “creating public anxiety in the virtual space.” After ...
Today marks two years since Iranian security forces prevented former presidential candidates Mehdi Karroubi and Mir Hossein Mousavi, and cultural leader Zahra Rahnavard from leaving their homes. The three opposition leaders have been held under de facto house arrest ever since they requested a permit for a rally in solidarity with Arab Spring protesters in ...
(Commentary) What does it mean to defend something “unabashedly”? The use of the word “unabashed” here might mean that we have received a “shameful” proposal. In such cases, we usually mean that someone suggested something ugly to us without shame, whereas we feel he should have been more remorseful. What lies behind our expectation of ...
(February 13, 2013) The Iranian authorities should immediately release from arbitrary house arrest two former presidential candidates Mehdi Karroubi and Mir Hossein Mousavi, his wife Zahra Rahnavard, author and political activist, and cease harassing or detaining without cause the couple’s two daughters and Mehdi Karroubi’s son, said the Nobel Peace laureate Shirin Ebadi and ...
Nearly two years since Iranian opposition leaders Mehdi Karroubi, Mir Hossein Mousavi, and Zahra Rahnavard were placed under illegal house arrest in Tehran, Iranian authorities have summoned their children, a source close to the families told the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran. ...
Today three United Nations experts spoke out against the continued detention of former Iranian presidential candidates Mehdi Karroubi and Mir Hossein Mousavi and cultural leader Zahra Rahnavard, as well as the recent detention and interrogation of their children. This Friday, February 15, will mark two years of the opposition leaders’ house arrest. ...
Following the arrest of Saeed Mortazavi, Tehran’s former press court judge and prosecutor, Nobel Peace laureate Shirin Ebadi told the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, “The timing and the manner of arrest of Saeed Mortazavi, a suspect in the Kahrizak Detention Center case and the Zahra Kazemi murder case, once again showed that ...
Former Tehran Prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi should be prosecuted for his role in prisoners’ deaths, not political score-settling, prominent lawyer Abdol-Karim Lahidji told the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran. Mortazavi, currently the head of Iran’s Social Security Organization, was arrested Tuesday and detained for 24 hours following a public exposé by President Ahmadinejad during ...
Another wave of summonses and arrests of journalists has taken place in Iran, the Iranian Intelligence Ministry announced on February 5. In a statement published by Fars News Agency, affiliated with Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps, the Intelligence Ministry stated that the journalists were arrested for their contact with the BBC and that the arrests, which ...
“Discrimination is . . . quite widespread, whether it’s based on gender, religion, or ethnicity,” Dr. Ahmad Shaheed tells us in this latest podcast. In March of 2011, increased international concern about Iran’s human rights crisis led to the appointment of a United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on the situation of Human Rights in the ...
In the last week of January, Iranian security forces arrested at least 16 journalists and charged them with “spying and ties with foreign news organizations.” Iranian authorities are accusing the journalists of working with the Persian-language services of the BBC and Voice of America, based in the UK and the US, respectively. ...