“Capital punishment itself is a form of premeditated murder,” Ramin Jahanbegloo tells us in today’s podcast. Today we discuss a culture of violence that’s become deeply entrenched in Iranian society. State violence in the form of inhumane executions, cruel and unusual punishments, brutality in response to public dissent, and ill treatment and torture throughout the ...
A Tehran court has closed the case against the interrogator accused of murdering blogger Sattar Beheshti, determining it was not murder but rather “quasi-murder.” Gohar Eshghi, Beheshti’s mother, told the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran that she is protesting the court’s decision to dismiss the murder charges in the case of her son’s ...
Six Kurdish Sunni prisoners on death rowat Ghezel Hessar Prison in Karaj have been on a hunger strike since Monday, November 4, a human rights activist told the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran. Hamed Ahmadi, Kamal Molaei, Jamshid Dehghnai, Jahangir Dehghani, Seyed Hadi Hossein, and Seddigh Mohammadi, all being kept in Unit 3 ...
In today’s podcast, Persis Karim talks about the literature of the Iranian diaspora and the creative restrictions on writers within Iran. ...
Fifteen years after the chain murders of Iran, which began with the killings of Dariush and Parvaneh Forouhar, their daughter Parastou Forouhar hoped to hold a memorial ceremony at her house in Tehran this week. The Iranian authorities, however, prevented people from entering her home, even blocking the street. ...
In a November 18 interview with semi-official Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA), Iran’s Police Commander Esmail Ahmadi Moghaddam shared unprecedented insights into several different human rights issues that over the past few years have faced the Iranian authorities, and specifically the Iranian police. ...
Mr. Javad Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister, has produced a YouTube video in which he asks all countries, particularly his negotiating partners in Geneva, to trust the peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear program. To the extent that this appeal is viewed as public diplomacy intended to facilitate a negotiated settlement of the nuclear dispute, his initiative ...
In the week between November 8 and November 15, Iranian police killed two Kurdish citizens in the border region areas of Nosood in Kermanshah Province and Baneh in Kurdistan Province, allegedly as part of an effort to fight the smuggling of goods. Some residents of the region have expressed their outrage by closing their businesses, ...
The International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran welcomes the United Nations General Assembly’s Third Committee vote today overwhelmingly supporting human rights in Iran, and urges the Iranian government to comply with UN human rights mechanisms and take concrete steps to address the ongoing violations in the country. ...
As the United Nations General Assembly Third Committee prepares to vote on the resolution on the promotion and protection of human rights in Iran, 25 human rights organizations have joined together to urge member states to vote in favor of the resolution. ...
The Medical Examiner’s report on the cause of death for Sattar Beheshti, a blogger killed during interrogations in a police detention center in November 2012, states that Beheshti died from internal bleeding, hemorrhaging in his lungs, liver, kidneys, and brain, a source with knowledge of the case told the International Campaign for Human Rights in ...
Since President Hassan Rouhani took office this August, Iran has executed more than 200 people. ...
“Until the moment he was transferred to the enclosed visitation hall, Shirkoo Moarefi did not know that his death sentence was going to be enforced. He only realized he was about to be hanged when he saw the gallows,” a source told the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran. ...
Iran has executed more than 200 people in the three months since President Hassan Rouhani took office. According to a former reformist Member of Parliament, Rouhani’s Special Assistant in Ethnic and Minority Affairs Ali Younesi expressed his dismay at the recent executions in Kurdistan and said that “extremist elements” were responsible for them. ...
Ahmad Saeed Sheikhi, one of the lawyers representing Shirkoo Moarefi, a Kurdish prisoner who was executed November 4, confirmed news of his execution and told the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, “I learned about my client’s execution from news websites. I tried to contact his family many times and I was finally able ...
“I ask all judicial and legal officials in Iran and abroad, as well as officials of human rights organizations inside and abroad, to pursue this subject [my case] in the region in order to prevent the murder of an innocent man. I hope for a day when we would not witness executions in Kurdistan and ...
Iranian authorities executed Kurdish political prisoner Habibollah Golparipour on October 26 without conducting any independent investigation into claims of torture, his family learned later that day. The International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran has obtained an audio recording of a letter Golparipour wrote a few weeks before his execution pleading for an investigation and ...
The Iranian Judiciary should immediately halt its new wave of repression of the media and civil society and stop its numerous rushed executions, the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran said today. ...
Zanyar Moradi (right) and Loghman Moradi (left)The Kurdistan Province judicial and security officials have launched an effort in recent days to enforce the confirmed death sentences of two Kurdish prisoners of conscience, Zanyar and Loghman Moradi, who ...
Over 100 human rights advocates from 40 countries are convening in São Paulo, Brazi, from October 12 to 19, to discuss “A New Global Order in Human Rights? Actors, Challenges and Opportunities” at the 13th International Human Rights Colloquium organized by Conectas Human Rights. This post will be updated regularly throughout the conference. ...
One day after sweeping news of the unsuccessful execution of a convict who was hanged on Wednesday, October 16 but who was discovered alive at the morgue when his family came to take his body for burial, the hospitalized convict’s fate remains ambiguous. A judge from the Administrative Justice Court has stated that “The issued ...
Sattar Beheshti’s mother told the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran that the indictment issued for her son’s prison death case for “quasi-intentional murder” was unexpected. “We’re really disappointed with the indictment. Up until the time the indictment was issued, every time we saw Mr. Shahriari, the case’s Investigative Judge, in the meetings he ...
The Iranian authorities should impose an immediate moratorium on executions in Iran given the alarming rise in the use of the death penalty in recent weeks, the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran and the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center said today. ...
Ataollah Rezvani, 52, was killed by a gunshot to the back of the head in his car on August 24. He was an active member of the Bandar Abbas ...
Today the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran released the music video “Execution” by Okhtapus, featuring acclaimed Iranian singers Shahin Najafi and Majid Kazemi, which directly confronts the Iranian government’s routine practice of inhumane state executions. ...