Cartoon 65: The More Things Change
Since President Hassan Rouhani took office this August, Iran has executed more than 200 people. ...
Executions / Life
Executed Prisoner Did Not Know He Would Be Hanged Until He Saw the Gallows
“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. ...
Iranian Government Official Dismayed at Rise in Executions
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. ...
Iran Executed Another Kurdish Political Prisoner Without Alerting Family or Lawyers
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 ...
Cartoon 63: “Prevent the Murder of an Innocent Man”
“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 ...
Executed Prisoner Habibollah Golparipour Asked Judicial and Human Rights Officials to Stop His Execution (Audio)
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 ...
Repression Intensifies Despite Rouhani’s Promises
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. ...
Kurdistan Authorities Push to Execute Two Kurdish Political Prisoners
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 ...
XIII International Human Rights Colloquium
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. ...
Convicts Who Survive Executions Are Not Executed Again, Says Lawyer
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: All Efforts Focused on Protecting Murderer
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 ...
Iran Should Halt Executions as Rate of Hangings Accelerates
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. ...
Judge Claims Baha’i’s Death Was Suicide, Not Murder
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 ...
Prominent Iranian Musician Challenges Public Executions in New Music Video
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. ...
Intelligence Ministry Interrogates Mourning Mother
Human rights activist Mansoureh Behkish, several of whose family members were executed by the Islamic Republic in the 1980s, was summoned to Intelligence Ministry again on Wednesday, August 26, a source told the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran. She has been summoned to the Intelligence Ministry several times in the past. ...
Demanding Justice, an Interview with Reza Moini
In an interview with Kambiz Hosseini, host of the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran’s “Five in the Afternoon” weekly podcast, Reza Moini, the head of Reporters Without Borders’ Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan desk, said that his brother lost his life during the 1988 mass executions of dissidents in Iranian prisons. ...
UN Should Investigate Fatal Attack on Camp Ashraf
(September 2, 2013) The United Nations should immediately investigate the recent attack on Camp Ashraf, resulting in the killing of dozens of residents, and take all necessary steps to protect residents of the camp against any further violence, the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran said today. ...
Fulfilling Promises: A Human Rights Roadmap for Rouhani
During his 2013 presidential campaign, Iranian president Hassan Rouhani promised to uphold the “rights of the people” enumerated in the country’s constitution. Millions of his supporters demanded social and political rights, including the release of political prisoners from prison and house arrest. In ...
Rouhani Should Honor Voters’ Demand for Human Rights
Iranian president Hassan Rouhani should take concrete steps to curb widespread human rights abuses by the government of Iran and reinstate the rule of law in the country, the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran said today. ...
Podcast 60: Sahar Delijani’s Children of the Jacaranda Tree
Children of the Jacaranda Tree, by Sahar Delijani, is a stunning debut novel set in post-Revolutionary Iran. Told in interconnected, alternating perspectives, the book follows three generations of men and women, some linked by family, others brought together by the tide of history that forces its way into their lives. ...
Cartoon 56: Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi, Minister of Justice?
Iran's new president Hassan Rouhani nominated Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi for the post of justice minister on August 4, 2013. Rights groups have implicated Pour-Mohammadi in abuses that may constitute crimes against humanity, including the executions ...
Withdraw Cabinet Nominee Implicated in Abuses
Iran’s new president, Hassan Rouhani, should immediately withdraw his nomination of Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi for the post of justice minister, Reporters Without Borders, the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, and Human Rights Watch said today. Rouhani presented the list of his nominees for cabinet posts to the Iranian parliament during his inauguration ceremony on ...
Security Forces Closely Watch Osanloo’s Memorial Service
The 40th-day memorial service for labor activist Afshin Osanloo, who died on June 20 of what prison authorities announced as “a heart attack,” was held at Tehran’s Behesht-e Zahra Cemetery, under the close watch and direction of a large number of security forces. Afshin Osanloo’s mother told the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran ...
Supreme Court Upholds Execution Sentence for Four Ahvazis
With the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the death sentences of four young Arab men from Ahvaz on charges of “moharebeh” (enmity with God) and “corruption on earth,” the prisoners are currently in danger of imminent execution at Karoon Prison in Ahvaz. The four Arab citizens and their families were informed of the Supreme Court’s ...
Deceased Blogger’s Mother Requests Exhumation
In reaction to the Medical Examiner’s Office’s final opinion stating that Sattar Beheshti’s cause of death could not have been blows while in detention, his mother recently demanded for his body to be exhumed to determine his real cause of death. ...