At least nine unarmed cross-border couriers were killed or injured between October 30 and November 7, 2012, a local source told the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran. “On the night of October 30, border security forces shot some cross-border couriers in Targehvar near Orumiyeh [in West Azerbaijan Province]. One of the border couriers, ...
Imprisoned human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh, who has been on a hunger strike since October 17, told her husband that her health has deteriorated to the point where she is transferred to the prison infirmary every day. In an interview with the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, her husband Reza Khandan said, “The ...
(November 27, 2012) The International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran welcomes today’s passage of a resolution by the United Nations Third Committee of the General Assembly calling on the government of Iran to stop its massive human rights violations. ...
The International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran announces the release of “Behind the Electronic Curtain,” a new documentary film by Tara Kangarlou on the crushing of free speech in Iran. The film will premier in Washington DC, where the director hopes it will have a significant effect on policymakers. The premier will be followed ...
Gohar Eshghi, Sattar Beheshti’s mother, told the Campaign that she is requesting an in-person meeting with Sadeq Larijani, Head of the Iranian Judiciary, so that she may talk to him about the investigations into her son’s death. “I would like to ask Mr. Larijani and the Tehran Prosecutor to give me an appointment so that ...
“The cause of his illnesses has not yet been determined, but the initial diagnosis is that Ahmad is under psychological pressure and stress has led to these illnesses. He has been under stress in prison for 3.5 years, especially the first few months of his detention when he was under immense pressure, and the effects ...
Student and human rights activist Abdolfazl Tabarzadi has been released after six months of imprisonment in Karoon Prison, after the medical examiner and a judge determined he is medically unfit to serve his prison term. Suffering from severe psychological problems, Tabarzadi is currently being treated at his family home. His grandmother, Sakineh Zibaei, told the ...
Respect the Oath: "Keep Them from Harm and Injustice" After international outcry about the suspicious death of blogger Sattar Bahashti while in custody of the Iranian security forces, Iranian authorities ...
“When Nasrin launched her hunger strike, our visiting days had been confirmed for Sundays, along with the other women prisoners of conscience. As she is in solitary confinement, though, they say she is banned from having visitors,” Khandan told the Campaign. “But that is totally irrelevant—these 20 days of solitary confinement are going to be ...
GENEVA (15 November 2012) – A group of United Nations experts today urged the Government of Iran to undertake a thorough, independent and impartial investigation of the death in custody of Iranian blogger Sattar Beheshti, particularly the allegations of torture, and to make the result of such an investigation public. ...
A source close to the family of Sattar Beheshti, a blogger whose family was informed of his death in custody on November 6, told the International Campaign that “If we know that we are supported by an organization and that our lives are safe and that they will not take us like Sattar to beat, ...
After several days of silence on the prison death of blogger Sattar Beheshti, the Iranian Judiciary’s Human Rights Council stated in a press release today, November 11, 2012, that by special order of Sadeq Larijani, Head of the Judiciary, “all aspects of the issue have come under careful review, and the Judiciary Spokesperson and other ...
Sattar Beheshti, 35, a laborer who criticzed the Iranian government for its oppressive policies in his blogs, was arrested on Tuesday, October 30. His arrest came after several warnings and summonses by Iran’s Cyber Police who had at one point threatened Beheshti that if he kept writing his critical blogs, they would “make his mother ...
A source close to the family of Sattar Behesthi, a blogger whose family was told on November 6 that he had died in a detention center, told the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran that the blogger’s family was threatened with arrest if they spoke with the media. The source told the Campaign that ...
(November 8, 2012) The Iranian Judiciary should immediately investigate the death of a young blogger, Sattar Beheshti, during interrogations and hold the responsible officials accountable, the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran said today. Beheshti’s death in custody raises serious concerns about the ongoing ill-treatment of prisoners of conscience in Iran while security and ...
(Paris, London, New York, October 31, 2012) Iran’s judiciary and prison authorities should end mistreatment of the prominent rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh, Nobel peace laureate Shirin Ebadi and six human rights organizations said today. Ebadi and the rights groups also called on Iran’s authorities to allow all prisoners access to necessary medical care and ...
“For every day [journalists] spend in jail, Iran suffers a reputational problem somewhere in the world,” UN Special Rapporteur Ahmed Shaheed said in an exclusive interview with the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran. “I signify … a heightened sense of caring by the international community about the plight of people in Iran.” ...
Nasrin Sotoudeh, a prominent Iranian lawyer, has dedicated her life to fighting for human rights and defending prisoners of conscience in Iran. For her work, she was recently awarded the European Parliament’s prestigious Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought. For her work, she is serving a six-year prison sentence on charges of “acting against national ...
The European Parliament today awarded its prestigious Sakharov Prize for human rights and freedom of thought to imprisoned Iranian lawyer and human rights defender Nasrin Sotoudeh and prominent filmmaker Jafar Panahi. Both awardees have been sentenced to long prison sentences in Iran and bans on travel and their careers because of their opposition to the ...
“Siavash has lost a lot of weight and does not have a good psychological state. He is 24. He was a graduate student when he was abruptly banned from continuing his education, and then he was imprisoned. The month-long solitary confinement, loneliness, his education ban, and his uncertain future have all made him depressed. He ...
Iranian media reported on October 4 that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was planning to visit the entirety of Evin Prison, including parts under the control of the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC). Since June 2012, Ahmadinejad’s media advisor Ali Akbar Javanfekr has been imprisoned at Evin, a case Ahmadinejad noted he would pursue. Dozens of prisoners of conscience ...
In a statement released October 2, 2012, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights of the United Nations expressed its concern over “the arrest and imprisonment of several prominent human rights defenders, journalists and political activists in … Iran in the past two weeks.” The OHCHR warned of “a further severe clamp down ...
In an exclusive interview with the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, 2003 Nobel laureate and human rights activist Shirin Ebadi spoke about a new teachers’ rights initiative and called on the Iranian government to “listen to the legitimate demands of the teachers and to act on them.” ...
Just over three years ago, three young Americans—Sarah Shourd, Shane Bauer and Joshua Fattal—were taken into custody by Iranian border guards while hiking in Iraqi Kurdistan. Though the young Americans’ case was widely believed to be political theater, Iranian authorities insisted they had illegally crossed over into Iranian territory in order to commit espionage; charges ...