What We Do

The Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) is an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization working to protect and promote human rights in Iran. Headquartered in New York, CHRI is comprised of award-winning journalists, researchers, lawyers, activists, writers, multimedia specialists and advocates based around the world who work to support the basic rights and freedoms of the Iranian people.

Research and Documentation

Since 2008, the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI), formerly the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, has been researching and documenting human rights violations throughout the country. We rely on primary sources inside Iran to research, verify and report on events and issues that might otherwise go uncovered, channeling our research and analysis into press releases, articles and in-depth reports. Our work is distributed to over 4000 government, UN, NGO and media leaders around the world. CHRI’s work is produced in both English and Persian, supporting our mission to reach and inform Iranians as well as a global audience. In 2019, CHRI published nearly 850 articles (349 in English; close to 500 in Farsi), and multiple in-depth reports.

Multimedia

CHRI also channels its research and documentation into multimedia products that are designed to reach a mass audience outside the traditional human rights community. We produce videos, fact sheets, GIFs and posters on a broad range of issues in both English and Farsi. In 2019, our 34 videos received over one million views. Our Farsi language videos, extensively viewed on social media, are central to our goal of building the human rights community inside Iran.

Art, Culture and Society

CHRI’s Arts, Culture & Society program is aimed at providing a platform for repressed artistic voices and promoting freedom of artistic expression, cross-cultural understanding and tolerance. Our 2019 initiatives included our art exhibition, A Bridge Between You and Everything, which was curated by acclaimed artist Shirin Neshat and featured 14 prominent and emerging contemporary Iranian women artists. The show was held at the High Line Nine in Chelsea, from November 7 to December 14, 2019, and included more than 100 works (painting, photography, video, sculpture and mixed media), as well as an accompanying panel discussion with the artists. In addition, CHRI published a book of illustrations and essays on International Human Rights Days in 2019, titled, Days to Remember, International Human Rights Days and the Pursuit of Human Dignity in Iran. The book highlights a broad range of human rights issues and their relevance to Iran—such as children’s rights, religious discrimination, violence against women, press freedoms and many other issues—accompanied by original drawings by an Iranian-Canadian artist.

Media Outreach

CHRI focuses international media attention on human rights abuses in Iran through outreach to journalists and editors throughout the world. We alert the media to events and issues that might otherwise go unnoticed, furnish verified documentation of real-time developments on the ground in Iran, provide background information and analysis of conditions in Iran, give frequent in-depth interviews and commentary to major international print and broadcast media outlets (in English and Farsi), and write op-eds for major publications. CHRI received 3,368 international media citations in 2019, including over 100 in Farsi-language media. Our Farsi social media outreach is also extensive: CHRI reaches as many as one million people monthly through various social media platforms (Twitter, Instagram, Telegram and Facebook), supporting our mission to help inform Iranian civil society on human rights issues.

International Advocacy

CHRI engages in extensive international advocacy, with national governments around the globe and major international organizations. In particular, CHRI has become a leading source of information, analysis and recommendations on the state of human rights in Iran for the UN. In 2019, we submitted five major reports to the UN, with detailed human rights information and case material for UN bodies including the Special Rapporteur on human rights in Iran, the Office of the Secretary General, the Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and the Universal Periodic Review. CHRI conducts meetings with UN expert teams for in-depth briefings, case material, recommendations and primary sources for interviews and testimonies, and regularly updates the special procedures and OHCHR regarding specific issues and cases. Reflecting our impact, CHRI is heavily cited in UN reports. For example, in the August 2019 report on the situation of human rights in Iran by the UN Secretary-General, CHRI was cited 49 times, while in the July 2019 report of the Special Rapporteur on human rights in Iran, CHRI was cited 15 times. Through this work, we are able to identify key areas of concern for the UN, bring the voices of Iranian human rights defenders to the international community, advance UN action on critical human rights issues, and bring pressure to bear on the Iranian government to improve its human rights record.CHRI also partners with activists and human rights organizations around the world to advance human rights in Iran, and advocates with relevant private sector actors, particularly in the area of internet freedom, to support the basic rights of the people of Iran.

Capacity Building

CHRI works actively to support and build the capacity of Iranian civil society, especially journalists and activists, in such areas as human rights research, documentation and advocacy, as well as in the critical areas internet access and security.

Our Approach

Our approach is non-partisan and nonpolitical; we operate within the framework of human rights law, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), as well as other conventions Iran has ratified, customary international law, and humanitarian law.