Investigation Marked by Torture, Witness Tampering and Contradictions August 26, 2021—The refusal by Iran’s Supreme Court to allow a judicial review of the 25-year prison sentence for Vahid Afkari, the brother of wrestling champion Navid Afkari who was unlawfully executed last year, despite evidence of torture, ...
Lawyer: The Ruling against Vahid Afkari had “24 Contradictions and 3 Lies” Despite Inconsistencies and Torture, Supreme Court Refuses to Review 25-year Prison Sentence Nearly a year after the unlawful execution of wrestling champion Navid Afkari, a request by his brother Vahid, who along with a third Afkari ...
Upcoming Trial of Hamid Nouri May Reveal Details of Executions of Thousands of Prisoners and Role of Incoming President Raisi August 4, 2021—The upcoming trial of a former assistant prosecutor in Iran, Hamid Nouri, in a Swedish court on charges of committing war crimes and murder for ...
Prisons Pose High Risks to Inmates Amid the Country’s Surging Covid-19 Pandemic August 4, 2021 – Elderly dual national prisoners Mehran Raoof, 66, and Nahid Taghavi, 64, were among five prisoners held on trumped-up charges who were sentenced to jail in Iran today, August 4, 2021. The ...
Three more human rights attorneys in Iran were handed unjust prison sentences in July 2021 amid an ongoing campaign to eliminate due process for activists and dissidents by intimidating the lawyers who defend them, the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) has learned. *At least ...
State Now Issues and Revokes Law Licenses, Crushing Independence of Legal Profession Due Process and Fair Trial Rights Dealt Further Blow by New Legislation July 12, 2021—In a sweeping grab of new powers over the Iranian Bar Association (IBA) that grants the Iranian judiciary the right to issue ...
Judicial System To Be Used To Further Suppress Dissent July 6, 2021—The appointment of Gholam-Hossein Mohseni Ejei, a major human rights violator, as the Islamic Republic’s new judiciary chief is another indication of the commitment by the country’s ruling establishment to use the judicial system as a ...
Ghost of Navid Afkari Haunts Judiciary Chief’s Election Bid June 15, 2021 – One week before Iranian Judiciary Chief Ebrahim Raisi runs virtually uncontested for president, the family of Navid Afkari—a wrestler who was executed under Raisi’s watch—has filed a supreme court petition seeking a ...
The state policy of persecuting and imprisoning independent defense lawyers under false charges for doing their jobs is continuing under Iranian Judiciary Chief Ebrahim Raisi, who is running for the presidency in June 2021. In addition to at least four defense attorneys who are currently imprisoned in ...
May 5, 2021 – Eight months after an Iranian wrestler was unjustly executed in Shiraz, his brothers Vahid and Habib Afkari remain in prolonged solitary confinement in the same prison where they’ve also been tortured and threatened with execution, the Center for Human Rights in ...
April 27, 2021 – World powers negotiating with Iran over its nuclear program should present a joint stance against Iran’s cruel and unlawful practice of jailing dual nationals to use as bargaining chips, the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) urged ahead of more show ...
A defense attorney who has represented many detainees held on politically motivated charges in Iran explains what it’s like to work in a country where the state is actively working to eliminate his profession ...
Iran’s judicial system allows detainees and prisoners to be subjected to harsh and inhuman interrogations without access to counsel and with impunity for interrogators and other judicial officials. First-hand accounts of being interrogated in Iranian prisons and detention centers have been documented by the UN and human ...
*Editor's Note: Transfers that occurred after this article was published are listed at the bottom. Iran’s judicial system has a long, documented history of sentencing detainees held on politically motivated charges to “exile”—prolonged banishment to a remote, underdeveloped town or city far from the detainee’s residence—after the completion of ...
Imam Ali Popular Students Relief Society Shuttered after Tehran Court Grants Motion by Interior Ministry March 4, 2021—An Interior Ministry motion to disband the Imam Ali Popular Students Relief Society (IAPSRS) was granted by a court in Tehran on March 3, 2021. ...
Following is an excerpted translation by the Center for Human Rights in Iran of comments made by the renowned rights activist and former prisoner of conscience Narges Mohammadi in a February 26, 2021, video message about being assaulted by the director of Evin Prison and other security ...
The Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) has joined 35 fellow civil society and human rights organizations to make the following urgent appeal and end the ongoing intimidation and arrest campaign against Kurdish and other minority activists and individuals in Iran. URGENT INTERNATIONAL ACTION NEEDED TO SECURE RELEASE OF ...
Branch 28 of the Revolutionary Court in Iran sentenced writer, translator, and the secretary of the board of directors of the Iranian Writers' Association, Arash Ganji, to 11 years in prison. Ganji was convicted of conspiracy, membership of an illegal organization and propaganda after he ...
At Least 10 Prisoners on Death Row in Zahedan, Accused of Membership in Militant Groups Application of Death Penalty in Political Cases Continues to Increase Three prisoners were recently executed in Iran, two in the central prison in Zahedan, capital of Iran’s Sistan and Baluchistan Province, and one in ...
Geneva, 14 December 2020 I am appalled at the execution in Iran on 12 December of Ruhollah Zam, activist and founder of the AmadNews Telegram channel. His death sentence and execution by hanging are emblematic of a pattern of forced confessions extracted under torture and broadcast on state media being used ...
EU Countries Withdraw from Iran Business Forum in Protest Over Execution France Tweets Outrage over “Barbaric and Unacceptable” Execution of Rouhollah Zam December 14, 2020—Major European countries have pulled out of a planned Europe-Iran Business Forum that was scheduled to begin today, December 14, in protest over Iran’s ...
Harassment of Family Members of Imprisoned Human Rights Attorney Intensifies As part of a continuing campaign of harassment and manufactured prosecutions against the families of political prisoners and activists in Iran, Mehraveh Khandan, the 20-year-old daughter of imprisoned human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh, appeared in a ...
Book Review Nasser Mohajer, Voices of a Massacre: Untold Stories of Life and Death in Iran, 1988 Oneworld Publications, 2020 Mansour Farhang In 1988, the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini, issued a secret fatwa (a religious edict) ordering judicial authorities to execute between 4,500 and ...
Ali Younesi and Amirhossein Moradi Under Pressure to Make Forced “Confessions” Student Groups: Allegations Unfounded, State Building False Case Without Evidence Two honor students at the Sharif University of Technology in Tehran, who were both violently arrested by the security forces on April 10, 2020, have been in detention ...
Six-year and Three-year Sentences Begin for Senior Iranian Writers Association Members Lawyer: “These sentences are without legal and judicial merit. They are only political rulings” Prominent members of the Iranian Writers Association (IWA) have begun serving prison sentences for the peaceful expression dissent and their opposition to censorship. “On ...