Jamshid Sharmahd (center) smiles for a family photo beside his wife (left) and daughter. Iranian authorities are blocking Jamshid Sharmahd, an Iranian-born German man who has been detained in Iran since July 2020, a lawyer of his choice. Instead, the Sharmahd family ...
At Least Two Political Prisoners Have Died in Past Four Months Niknafs Was Jailed Despite Health Conditions That Made Him Unfit for Prison June 7, 2021 – Another political prisoner has died in state custody two weeks before Iran’s Judiciary Chief Ebrahim Raisi, who is ultimately responsible for ...
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 ...
Mohammad Nourizad appears with a bloody face after protesting outside the home of Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khaminei, October 14, 2014 (photo credit: courtesy/Abazar Noorizad) UN Press Release GENEVA (4 May 2021) – UN human rights experts* today expressed serious concern over ...
A year after agents of Iran’s Intelligence Ministry arrested and tortured them, university students Ali Younesi and Amirhossein Moradi remain in Ward 209 of Evin Prison in Tehran, controlled by the ministry, while being denied access to lawyers and their relatives, the Center for Human ...
Prisoners Trapped in Overcrowded, Unhygienic Prisons without Adequate Medical Care April 14, 2021—The start of a fourth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Iran has increased concerns about the spread of the virus in the country’s overcrowded and unhygienic prisons and detention centers, the Center for Human ...
Lawyer: “Humanity, in addition to the rule of law, has vanished” Political prisoners in Iran, long subjected to especially harsh treatment in Iran’s prisons, have been largely left out of the furloughs (temporary leaves from prison) typically granted to many prisoners for Nowruz, the Persian New Year that ...
Persian version (PDF) GENEVA, UN Press Release (18 March 2021) — UN human rights experts* today demanded that Iranian authorities immediately release arbitrarily detained Iranian-Swedish academic Ahmadreza Djalali who is reportedly in a critical condition and near death after months of prolonged solitary confinement. “Djalali’s situation ...
Ten months after being arrested in Iran, a French national has been charged with “espionage” and “propaganda against the state,” the Center for Human Rights in Iran has learned. Benjamin Briere, 35, appeared at a hearing in the northeastern Iranian city of Mashhad on ...
*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 ...
Judicial Action Sought Against “Those Who Enforce Solitary Confinement and Superiors Who Order It” Use of Solitary Confinement Not Supported Under Iranian law Key Findings: Civil rights activists have filed a lawsuit in Tehran against those who order or enforce solitary confinement in Iran’s detention centers and prisons ...