Human rights

Iranwire – A London-based Iranian lawyer has called on the UN’s chemical-weapons watchdog to probe an ongoing wave of poisoning attacks that has sickened thousands of schoolgirls across Iran over more than four months. In a letter addressed to the director-general of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), Hamid Sabi requested the appointment of an inspector to …

Iranwire – IranWire has received a photo of the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence agent, Masoud Momeni, who the Baha’i International Community said yesterday is “preventing and disrupting” the burial of Baha’is at Tehran’s Khavaran cemetery. The bodies of five deceased Baha’is are being held in a morgue by Momeni, awaiting burial, one of which has languished there for 22 days. …

Iranwire – An Iranian court has sentenced a medical couple to a total of 20 years in prison in connection to the alleged killing of a member of the paramilitary Basij force during protests, activists say.  The court in Karaj, near Tehran, sentenced Hamid Ghareh Hasanlou, a radiologist, to 15 years, while his wife Farzaneh, a lab technician, was handed …

Iranwire – The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is calling on Iranian authorities to immediately release journalist Saeed Seif-Ali and drop any charges against him. “Authorities must let members of the press do their work without fear that they will be subject to arbitrary arrest and detention,” Sherif Mansour, the New York-based media freedom watchdog’s Middle East and North Africa …

Iranwire – “The devil is in details:” This is an apt description of the mandatory hijab laws of the Islamic Republic, laws that are so remote from modern life, so contrary to human rights and to Islamic Republic’s own constitution that it is difficult to believe that they truly exist. And these laws are enforced by the police, the paramilitary …

Iranwire – Belgium says it has formally asked Iranian authorities to repatriate jailed aid worker Olivier Vandecasteele, as a disputed prisoner exchange treaty between Tehran and Brussels formally entered into force on April 18. “I can confirm that Belgium has today submitted to Iran a request for the transfer of Mr. Vandecasteele,” a spokesman for Belgian Foreign Minister Hadja Lahbib …

Iranwire – A series of chemical attacks against girls’ schools were reported in at least a dozen cities across Iran on Monday. Reports and videos on social media reveal that students were poisoned at schools in Isfahan, Sanandaj, Ravansar, Saqqez, Bukan, Diwandrareh, Urmia, Gilangharb, Tabriz, Dezful, and Mahdasht. Since November 2022, more than 13,000 students have suffered symptoms including nausea, …

Iranwire – Female students at multiple Iranian universities protested mandatory hijab rules as the authorities continued to harass and suppress women who flout the Islamic Republic’s dress codes. Images published on social media show female students at Tehran University’s Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences staging a sit-in on April 16. The protesters held placards with slogans such as “No …

Iranwire – As IranWire has reported, hundreds of Iranians have sustained severe eye injuries after being hit by pellets, tear gas cannisters, paintball bullets or other projectiles used by security forces amid a bloody crackdown on mainly peaceful demonstrations. Doctors say that, as of now, at least 580 protesters have lost one or both eyes in Tehran and in Kurdistan alone. …

VOA – Dozens of schools in several provinces of Iran have been targeted by gas and chemical attacks that began in November, but now two officials in President Ebrahim Raisi’s government are asserting the spate of school poisonings was “the mischief of the students.” “The few cases of poisoning that occurred in [the] girls’ schools were very limited. The mischief …