Human rights

Al-Arabia – The UN Human Rights Council denounced Tuesday the rising numbers of executions in Iran, including of people who received the capital punishment in connection with protests that have rocked the country. The top United Nations rights body approved a resolution voicing “deep concern at the reported surge in the number of executions, including of individuals sentenced to death …

Iranwire – Amnesty International is calling on Iran’s authorities to immediately release a German-Iranian political dissident who has been sentenced to death following a “grossly unfair” trial, or at least reveal his fate and whereabouts and give him adequate medical care. The London-based human rights watchdog said on April 3 that the authorities have subjected Jamshid Sharmahd to an enforced …

Iranwire – Iran’s ministries of education and science have warned that they will no longer provide educational services to students who do not abide to the Islamic Republic’s dress codes. As classes re-opened after the Persian New Year, the Ministry of Education said on April 3 that women and girls who fail to comply with the compulsory hijab will not …

Iranwire – Ebrahim Vahedian Burjeni was born in Isfahan in 1935 to a Baha’i family and completed his primary education in the same city. After finishing the eighth grade, and receiving his middle school certificate, his uncle told him: “If you want God to be happy with you, become a teacher.” Following his advice, Ebrahim continued his education by going …

Al-Arabia – Faced with an increasing number of women defying the compulsory dress code, Iran’s judiciary chief has threatened to prosecute “without mercy” women who appear in public unveiled, Iranian media reported on Saturday. Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei’s warning comes on the heels of an interior ministry statement on Thursday that reinforced the government’s mandatory hijab law. “Unveiling is tantamount to …

Iranwire – On May 22, 2011, in a coordinated and simultaneous operation, agents of Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence raided the homes of 39 Baha’i citizens connected with the Baha’i Institute for Higher Education (BIHE) in Tehran, Shiraz, Isfahan, Zahedan, Sari and Karaj. The agents confiscated and took away documents, educational handouts, textbooks and computers belonging to these citizens. Tolou Golkar …

Iranwire – A group that monitors rights violations in Sistan and Baluchistan has documented 627 cases of killings of ethnic Baluch in the southeastern Iranian province over the past year. Haalvsh said in a recent report that its count of verified cases represents only half of the actual number of killings that occurred between March 2022 to March 2023. The …

Iranwire – An Iranian court has canceled the death sentence handed down to a man accused of damaging public property during protests in Tehran last year, his lawyer says. The lawyer, Hamed Ahmadi, said that the Tehran Revolutionary Court sentenced Sahand Noor Mohammadzadeh to five years imprisonment for gathering and collusion, one year for disturbing public order and 10 years …

RFL/RE – Four months after the disappearance of Molavi Abdul Ghaffar Naqshbandi, the Sunni imam from the Iranian city of Rask in Sistan-Baluchistan Province who disclosed the alleged rape of a 15-year-old girl by a local police commander, a video has surfaced in which he warns of the possibility that he may be “assassinated” or “apprehended.” Naqshbandi disappeared after he was summoned …

Iranwire – Jailed Iranian journalists Nilofar Hamedi and Elahe Mohammadi have won the 2023 Louis M. Lyons Award for Conscience and Integrity in Journalism for their “steadfast commitment to producing courageous journalism about issues in Iran affecting women, including the September 2022 death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini.” The winners were chosen by the Nieman Foundation for Journalism’s class of 2023 …