Four months after 19 university students in Iran were issued harsh prison sentences for attending protests, the country’s president declared that Iran’s “universities are the freest in the world.” “I don’t think there’s another ...
At Least Four Academics and One Scientist With Foreign Ties Detained in Iran Since 2016 *Editor's Note: This article was corrected on December 6, 2018, to reflect that Mohammad Jalal Abbasi was summoned, not detained. One Iranian demography expert who has held academic postings in Australia has ...
UN SRs on Human Rights Banned From Visiting Since 2005 The new special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran, Javaid Rehman, has requested that Iran break its 13-year ban on UN human rights experts visiting the country and allow him ...
Fifty Baha’i students have been expelled from Iranian universities in the current Iranian year (beginning March 21, 2018) because of their religious beliefs, according to Simin Fahandej, a representative of the Baha’i International Community’s Office in Geneva to the United Nations. “This ...
Afif Naeimi, the seventh and last imprisoned member of Baha’i leaders in Iran known as the Yaran, returned to Rajaee Shahr Prison near Tehran on April 23, 2018, at the end of his medical leave despite suffering from life-threatening ailments. His wife Shahla Khalaji informed the Center for Human Rights ...
Majid Dorri(right) and Mahdieh Golru protesting in front of the Science Ministry in Tehran. A student who was banned from pursuing a university education in Iran because ...
A screenshot of a clip of Ahmadreza Djalali’s so-called “confession” on Iran’s state-run IRIB state TV. Iranian state TV aired a forced confession by Ahmadreza Djalali because he wrote in a letter that he was imprisoned in Iran for refusing ...
A scene from Ahmadreza Djalali's forced confession that was aired on Iran's state-run IRIB news channel on December 17, 2017. Islamic Republic Has Long History of Forcing False Confessions in Politically Motivated Cases December 18, 2017—The forced confession broadcast December ...
A Student Day protest at the University of Tehran. Protests were held at several Iranian universities on December 7, 2017, on the occasion of Student Day. One activist told the Center ...
Iranian officials are beginning to broach the previously taboo topic of religious discrimination in Iran. On the same day, two government officials publicly discussed discriminatory policies against Baha’is, one of Iran’s most severely persecuted minority faiths. “Today we have students being illegally ...
Three young Iranians who complained to state officials after being denied university education for being followers of the Baha’i faith have been sentenced to five years in prison each, the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) has learned. Lawyers representing Rouhieh ...
Asma Jahangir, the special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran. In presenting her semi-annual 2017 report on Iran to the United Nations General Assembly, UN Special Rapporteur Asma Jahangir noted positive developments in the ...
Students protest against President Rouhani’s nominee to head the Science Ministry, Mansour Gholami, at Amirkabir University of Technology in Tehran. Rouhani’s Previous ...
Esmail Abdi is serving a six-year prison sentence for peacefully advocating for teachers' rights in Iran. Iran’s judiciary has denied a request for a review of the heavy prison sentence issued against Esmail Abdi, the former secretary general of the country’s largest ...
Mahdieh Golru: “I have lost hope along with the years of my youth.” Iran’s Intelligence Ministry has blocked formerly imprisoned civil rights activist Mahdieh Golru from attending Alzahra University in Tehran despite being accepted as a graduate student. ...
Iranian President Rouhani is scheduled to speak this week at the 2017 UNGA in New York, but he won't mention his Broken Promises....
In the six months since she was released from a three-week detention, Iranian Kurdish children and women's rights activist Farzaneh Jalali has been repeatedly called in for questioning by the Intelligence Ministry. “My client has been under various kinds of pressure, but by law I cannot speak about them,” ...
In 2015, Iran adopted educational guidelines from the UN 2030 agenda that could substantially improve access to education throughout the country. Two years later, a vicious smear campaign and opposition by the supreme leader has resulted in President Hassan Rouhani scrapping the guidelines. Generations of Iranians stand to lose from ...
Esmail Abdi’s Six-Year Sentence Influenced by IRGC The former secretary general of the Iranian Teachers’ Trade Association (ITTA) has been returned to Evin Prison to continue serving a six-year prison sentence for his peaceful activism despite being promised extended furlough by a ...
Imprisoned for refusing to spy for Iran’s Intelligence Ministry, Hamid Babaei has been denied visitation rights at Rajaee Shahr Prison in Karaj, west of Tehran. “Today [July 26], like every other Wednesday, I went to [Rajaee Shahr] prison to visit ...
Items of Note Khatami Endorses Rouhani Influential reformist leader Mohammad Khatami has thrown his weight behind incumbent President Hassan Rouhani for Iran's May 19 presidential election. “We started on a path with Mr. Rouhani and we are at the halfway point,” he said in a ...
Ahead of Iran’s elections on May 19 for president and local councils, 29 members of the European Parliament have written a letter to Federica Mogherini, the representative of the European Union for foreign affairs and security policy and vice-president of the European Commission, urging the EU to call ...
Political prisoner Hamid Babaei is being refused hospital treatment by the authorities of Rajaee Shahr Prison in Karaj, west of Tehran, an informed source told the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI). “Hamid’s chest ...
One month before Iranians head to the polls, a senior commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) has revealed that President Hassan Rouhani opposed pressure to ban the popular Telegram application’s newly released “Voice Calls...