Sunday, January 28, 2007
Three Iranian Women's Rights Activists Arrested!
Tala't Taghinia, Mansoureh Shojaie, and Farnaz Seify, women's rights activists, journalists, and members of the Women's Cultural Center, were arrested at Imam Khomeini Airport in Tehran, while trying to exist the country to attend a journalism training in New Delhi India.After their arrest, security forces escorted the three activists to their homes, where their personal affects, such as their books, computers and computer cases, were searched and seized. After a search of their homes, these three activists were transferred to Evin Prison, 209th Ward.
Ms. Shirin Ebadi, Ms. Leila Alikarami and Ms. Nasrin Sotoudeh have accepted the cases of the above-mentioned in court.
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Saturday, January 20, 2007
Journalist banned from leaving the country to collect prize
Reporters Without Borders expressed concern after freelance journalist, Taghi Rahmani, was prevented from leaving Iran as he prepared to travel to Denmark on 13 January 2007, to receive a prize awarded by the local section of the freedom of expression organisation, PEN International.“We are very disturbed by this step, which has no legal basis,” the worldwide press freedom organisation said. “A ban on leaving the country, often used in Iran against independent voices, is designed above all to cut journalists off from the external world. This harassment is also intended to punish them for having links with foreign media and organisations”, it added.
Rahmani told Reporters Without Borders that he had been arrested on the tarmac at Tehran international airport, moments before boarding the plane for Copenhagen. He added that the authorities had also seized his passport.
The journalist, who is a leading press freedom activist, has worked for several Iranian publications, which has brought him into frequent conflict with the regime. Between 1981 and 2005, he was sentenced to a total of 5,000 days in prison for articles he had written.
Elsewhere, Reporters Without Borders repeated its anxiety about the plight of Kaveh Javanmard, journalist on the weekly Karfto, held secretly for exactly one month. His family has not received any news of him since his arrest, on 18 December 2006, from his home in Sanandej (Iranian Kurdistan) by intelligence ministry agents.
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Tuesday, January 16, 2007
message from Workers in Iran to Workers in Venezuela
From: The Syndicate of Workers of Tehran and Suburbs Bus CompanyTo: Honorable Secretary of the Nationwide Workers Federation of the Syndicates of Venezuela
Please accept our warmest greetings and to thank you and all the members of the workers union of Venezuela for your support of our union in our struggle to gain the freedom of Mansour Osanloo and the right to organize an independent syndicate.
Dear friend, Mr. Secretary
We request of you, who cares about the rights of the workers in Iran, to ask the honorable President of Venezuela who won his third term by virtue of your support, to ask the Iranian President as well as the Minister of Labor, who are visiting your country, to respect the rights of the workers in Iran according to international obligations and to end the persecution, arrest, expulsion and imprisonment of our members who have not been able to work for more than one year and have lost all of their wages, and to return them to their jobs.
With hope for spread of peace, justice and ever-increasing solidarity of the workers of Iran and Venezuela
The Syndicate of Workers of Tehran and Suburbs Bus Company
January 13, 2007
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message from Workers in Iran to Workers in Venezuela
From: The Syndicate of Workers of Tehran and Suburbs Bus CompanyTo: Honorable Secretary of the Nationwide Workers Federation of the Syndicates of Venezuela
Please accept our warmest greetings and to thank you and all the members of the workers union of Venezuela for your support of our union in our struggle to gain the freedom of Mansour Osanloo and the right to organize an independent syndicate.
Dear friend, Mr. Secretary
We request of you, who cares about the rights of the workers in Iran, to ask the honorable President of Venezuela who won his third term by virtue of your support, to ask the Iranian President as well as the Minister of Labor, who are visiting your country, to respect the rights of the workers in Iran according to international obligations and to end the persecution, arrest, expulsion and imprisonment of our members who have not been able to work for more than one year and have lost all of their wages, and to return them to their jobs.
With hope for spread of peace, justice and ever-increasing solidarity of the workers of Iran and Venezuela
The Syndicate of Workers of Tehran and Suburbs Bus Company
January 13, 2007
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Friday, January 12, 2007
Amnesty International: Fear for safety/Fear of torture or ill-treatment IRAN Kianoosh Sanjari (m) aged 24, student activist and blogger
PUBLIC AI Index: MDE 13/001/2007
10 January 2007
Further Information on UA 284/06 (MDE 13/121/2006, 23 October 2006) Fear for safety/Fear of torture or ill-treatment
IRAN Kianoosh Sanjari (m) aged 24, student activist and blogger
Student activist Kianoosh Sanjari was released on 27 December on bail of 100 million touman (over US$100,000) by the Special Court for the Clergy. He is believed to have been accused of "acting against state security" and "propaganda against the system", although he does not yet appear to have been formally charged. No date has been set for a trial to begin.
He had been arrested in Tehran on 8 October 2006 while reporting on clashes between the security forces and supporters of Shi'a cleric Ayatollah Sayed Hossein Kazemeyni Boroujerdi. Beaten with batons during his arrest, he was taken to Section 209 of Evin Prison, which is run by the Ministry of Intelligence, and held there until his release. He was not permitted to meet his lawyer while he was in custody, and was not allowed to phone his family for the first month. After the first month, he was permitted some family visits, but these were supervised by an official.
Kianoosh Sanjari has thanked Amnesty International for its efforts. In a posting on his blog dated 8 January 2007 (which can be read in Persian at http://ks61.blogspot.com/2007/01/blog-post_08.html), he thanked those who worked on his behalf and mentioned Amnesty International. He also referred to a radio interview with Radio Farda (http://www.radiofarda.com/Article/2007/01/08/f4_sanjari_release_iran.html) in which he described his detention in Section 209. He said that during his first interrogation session the interrogator slapped him very hard several times and told him that he would be executed, which he believed was intended to put pressure on him to confess. He said that because of the conditions of his release, he was unable to describe everything that had happened while he was in custody.
According to Radio Farda, he had spent a month and a half in solitary confinement, and said, "Keeping people in solitary confinement, in which they have no contact with the outside world, is reckoned to be one of the worst forms of torture ... Solitary confinement, which is at war with body and mind, can be the most inhuman form of white torture for someone like me who has been arrested solely for the crime of investigating the rights of citizens and society." Kianoosh Sanjari went on to say that stories he had posted on his website, which had been picked up by other news sites, such as the memorial ceremony for Akbar Mohammadi, who died in prison following a hunger strike, and also news regarding the situation of political prisoners, seemed to have been the cause of "sensitivity" on the part of the authorities.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
Kianoosh Sanjari has been arrested at least four times, the first time when he was only 17. He was held in various detention centres, including Prison 59, and Section 325 of Evin Prison, which are both controlled by the Revolutionary Guards, and section 209 of Evin Prison, controlled by the Ministry of Intelligence. On one occasion he was sentenced to a year’s imprisonment by Branch 26 of the Revolutionary Court after being accused of student activities and being a spokesman for the United Student Front. Students are a politically active section of society in Iran, and are frequently targeted by the authorities for abuses including arbitrary arrest and denial of the right to continue their studies.
"White torture" is a term used by Iranians to describe prolonged periods of solitary confinement, often in detention centres outside the control of the prison authorities, including Section 209 of Evin Prison. Some of those who have experienced it have described it as being far worse than physical abuse.
RECOMMENDED ACTION: Please send appeals to arrive as quickly as possible in English, French, Persian, Arabic or your own language:
- welcoming the release on bail of Kianoosh Sanjari;
- calling on the authorities to order an immediate and impartial investigation into his allegations that he was tortured (which included being beaten, threatened with execution and subjected to prolonged incommunicado detention) and bring those responsible to justice;
- asking the precise charges he is facing, and the evidence against him;
- asking the authorities to inform you of the date of any trial sessions;
- urging the authorities to drop any charges against him which relate solely to his peaceful exercise of his internationally recognized right to freedom of expression and association, including his work as a blogger and human rights defender;
- stating that if Kianoosh Sanjari were to be convicted and imprisoned solely on the basis of such charges, Amnesty International would consider him to be a prisoner of conscience, and would call for his immediate and unconditional release.
APPEALS TO:
Leader of the Islamic Republic
His Excellency Ayatollah Sayed ‘Ali Khamenei, The Office of the Supreme Leader
Shoahada Street, Qom, Islamic Republic of Iran
Email: info@leader.ir
istiftaa@wilayah.org
Salutation: Your Excellency
Head of the Judiciary
His Excellency Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi
Ministry of Justice, Park-e Shahr, Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran
Fax: + 98 21 3 311 6567 (Mark: "Please forward to HE Ayatollah Shahroudi")
Salutation: Your Excellency
Minister of Intelligence
Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejeie
Ministry of Intelligence, Second Negarestan Street, Pasdaran Avenue, Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran
Email: iranprobe@iranprobe.com
Salutation: Your Excellency
COPIES TO:
President
His Excellency Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
The Presidency, Palestine Avenue, Azerbaijan Intersection, Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran
Fax: (via foreign ministry) +981 6 674 790 (Mark "Please forward to H.E. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad")
Email: dr-ahmadinejad@president.ir
via website: www.president.ir/email
Salutation: Your Excellency
Speaker of Parliament
His Excellency Gholamali Haddad Adel
Majles-e Shoura-ye Eslami
Imam Khomeini Avenue,
Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran
Fax: + 98 21 6 646 1746
and to diplomatic representatives of Iran accredited to your country.
PLEASE SEND APPEALS IMMEDIATELY. Check with the International Secretariat, or your section office, if sending appeals after 21 February 2007.
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HRW 2006 Iran Report
Iran
Events of 2006
Respect for basic human rights in Iran, especially freedom of expression and assembly, deteriorated in 2006. The government routinely tortures and mistreats detained dissidents, including through prolonged solitary confinement. The Judiciary, which is accountable to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, is responsible for many serious human rights violations.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s cabinet is dominated by former intelligence and security officials, some of whom have been implicated in serious human rights violations, such as the assassination of dissident intellectuals. Under his administration, the Ministry of Information, which essentially performs intelligence functions, has substantially increased its surveillance of dissidents, civil society activists, and journalists.
Freedom of Expression
Iranian authorities systematically suppress freedom of expression and opinion by closing newspapers and imprisoning journalists and editors. The few independent dailies that remain heavily self-censor. Many writers and intellectuals have left the country, are in prison, or have ceased to be critical. In September 2006 the Ministry of Culture and Guidance closed the reformist daily, Shargh, and shut down two reformist journals, Nameh and Hafez. In October the Ministry shut down a new reformist daily, Roozgar, only three days after it started publication. During the year the Ministry of Information summoned and interrogated dozens of journalists critical of the government.
In 2006 the authorities also targeted websites and internet journalists in an effort to prevent online dissemination of news and information. The government systematically blocks websites inside Iran and abroad that carry political news and analysis. In September 2006 Esmail Radkani, director-general of the government-controlled Information Technology Company, announced that his company is blocking access to 10 million “unauthorized” websites on orders from the Judiciary and other authorities.
Freedom of Assembly
The Ahmadinejad government, in a pronounced shift from the policy under former president Mohammed Khatami, has shown no tolerance for peaceful protests and gatherings. In January 2006 security forces attacked striking bus drivers in Tehran and detained hundreds. The government refused to recognize the drivers’ independent union or engage in collective bargaining with them. In February government forces attacked a peaceful gathering of Sufi devotees in front of their religious building in Qum to prevent its destruction by the authorities, using tear gas and water cannons to disperse them. In March police and plainclothes agents charged a peaceful assembly of women’s rights activists in Tehran and beat hundreds of women and men who had gathered to commemorate International Women’s Day. In June as women’s rights defenders assembled again in Tehran, security forces beat them with batons, sprayed them with pepper gas, marked the demonstrators with sprayed dye, and took 70 people into custody.
Torture and Ill-Treatment in Detention
Since President Ahmadinejad came to power, treatment of detainees has worsened in Evin prison as well as in detention centers operated clandestinely by the Judiciary, the Ministry of Information, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The authorities have subjected those imprisoned for peaceful expression of political views to torture and ill-treatment, including beatings, sleep depravation, and mock executions. Judges often accept coerced confessions. The authorities use prolonged solitary confinement, often in small basement cells, to coerce confessions (which are videotaped) and gain information regarding associates.
In 2006 two prisoners held for their political beliefs, Akbar Mohammadi and Valiollah Feyz Mahdavi, died in suspicious circumstances in prison. The authorities prevented their families from conducting independent autopsies. The government has taken no action to investigate the cause of the deaths.
Impunity
There is no mechanism for monitoring and investigating human rights violations perpetrated by agents of the government. The closure of independent media in Iran has helped to perpetuate an atmosphere of impunity.
In recent years public testimonies by numerous former prisoners and detainees have implicated Tehran’s public prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi and his office in some of the worst cases of human rights violations. Despite extensive evidence, Mortazavi has not been held responsible for his role in illegal detentions, torture of detainees, and coercing false confessions. The case of Iranian-Canadian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi, who died in the custody of judiciary and security agents led by Mortazavi in June 2003, remains unresolved. Mustapha Pour-Mohammadi, the current interior minister, is implicated in extrajudicial massacres of thousands of political prisoners in 1988.
Human Rights Defenders
In 2006 the authorities intensified their harassment of independent human rights defenders and lawyers in an attempt to prevent them from publicizing and pursuing human rights violations. In August the Interior Ministry declared illegal the Center for Defense of Human Rights, led by Shirin Ebadi, the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize winner. Ebadi and her colleagues provide pro-bono legal counsel to hundreds of dissidents, journalists, and students facing prosecution for exercising fundamental freedoms, such as peacefully protesting or criticizing government policies. The authorities threatened Ebadi and her colleagues with arrest should they continue their activities in defense of human rights. Following international protests, the government has not carried out its threat, but Ebadi and her colleagues remain vulnerable.
In June 2006 government agents arrested Ali Akbar Mousavi Khoini, a former member of parliament and outspoken critic of the government’s human rights record. The authorities held him in solitary confinement without access to his lawyers for more than four months. The Judiciary released him on October 21, only after he posted $300,000 bail. During a brief release to attend his father’s funeral in September, he publicly alleged that he was being tortured and forced to “repent” for his activities.
Juvenile Death Penalty
Iran has executed at least 13 juvenile offenders in the last five years, more than any other nation. On May 11, 2006, Iran executed Majid Segound and Masoud Naghi Biranvand, both 17 years old at the time of execution. Two youths scheduled to be executed on September 20, 2006, for murders committed while under 18 had their executions suspended when the victims’ families agreed to accept blood money in lieu of execution. About 30 juvenile offenders are on death row.
Minorities
Iran’s ethnic and religious minorities are subject to discrimination and, in some cases, persecution. In May Iranian Azeris in the northwestern provinces of East and West Azerbaijan and Ardebil demonstrated against government restrictions on Azeri language and cultural and political activities. Security services forcibly disrupted public protests that engulfed the region. In some protests demonstrators attacked government offices. Four people died in clashes in the city of Naghadeh on May 25.
In the southwestern province of Khuzistan, unrest among Iran’s Arab population intensified in 2006. Revolutionary Courts, following secret proceedings that did not meet international fair trial standards, condemned at least 16 Iranians of Arab origin to death on charges of armed activity against the state.
The government continues to deny Iran’s Baha’i community permission to publicly worship or pursue religious activities. In a letter dated October 29, 2005, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei instructed several government organs, including the Ministry of Information and the armed forces, “to acquire a comprehensive and complete report of all the activities of Baha’is for the purpose of identifying all the individuals of these misguided sects.” In May the authorities arrested 54 Baha’i youth who were teaching English, math, and other non-religious subjects to underprivileged children in the southern city of Shiraz. None of the Baha’i youth were charged with a crime. All but three were released after a week of detention and the remaining three were released on June 14, 2006.
Key International Actors
In 2006 negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program dominated the policy of the European Union towards Iran, with human rights concerns a secondary matter. The EU pledged to tie Iranian respect for human rights to progress in co-operation on other issues, but the pledge had little impact. Iran refused to resume its “human rights dialogue” with the EU that it had suspended in 2005, despite the EU’s repeated calls to do so.
The United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution in November 2005 noting serious violations and the worsening human rights situation in Iran. Under a standing invitation that Tehran issued in 2002 to the thematic mechanisms of the UN Commission on Human Rights, the special rapporteur on violence against women, Yakin Ertürk, visited Iran in February 2005. In a January 2006 report she highlighted “discriminatory provisions in both the Civil and Penal Codes, and flaws in the administration of justice,” resulting in disempowerment of women. The special rapporteur on adequate housing, Miloon Kothari, visited Iran in August 2005 and issued a report in March 2006. In his March 2006 report he raised several concerns about discrimination against ethnic and religious minorities and nomadic groups, among other things.
Iran has not responded to requests by the UN special rapporteurs on extrajudicial executions and torture, made in 2004 and 2005 respectively, to visit the country.
The Bush Administration remains divided on its Iran policy, and relations between the United States and Iran remain poor. The State Department frequently invoked Iran’s human rights record as a matter of concern. In February the State Department budgeted US$75 million “to support democracy promotion activities in Iran,” but a vast majority of Iranian dissidents, human rights defenders, and civil society activists inside Iran publicly dissociated themselves from the initiative, making clear they do not seek any financial help form the American government. The administration did not utilize multilateral international institutions to address human rights violations in Iran, in contrast to its vigorous efforts to build international coalitions in response to Iran’s alleged drive to acquire nuclear weapons and its support for Hezbollah in Lebanon and armed groups in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
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