Human rights

Iranwire – Over the past three months, hundreds of schoolgirls in Qom, Tehran, Borujerd, Sari, Ardebil and other Iranian cities have been poisoned. Now, this mysterious rash of poisoning appears to be much more serious than initially thought. On February 20, Attorney-General Mohammad Jafar Montazeri sent a letter to Qom’s prosecutor saying that the poisonings might be part of a “deliberate criminal act.” …

Iranwire – Students at the University of Tehran have held protests for the second consecutive night, according to videos posted on social media, following a decision to close the dormitories and hold classes online for more than a month. The protests began at the university campus on the afternoon of February 27 before reaching the men’s and women’s dormitory complexes, …

Iranwire – Article 7 of the Rome Statute, which established the International Criminal Court (ICC), defines crimes against humanity as criminal acts “when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack.” Article 7 (1) also determines the actions which amount to crimes against humanity in 11 subparagraphs, including murder, torture, extermination, …

Iranwire – Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is calling on the Iranian authorities to rescind their recent decision to ban a reformist daily that has criticized the country’s economic policies and morality police. Sazandegi newspaper was banned amid a brutal crackdown on five months of popular protests demanding fundamental economic, social and political reforms in the country, accompanied by a clampdown …

Iranwire – Iranian secondary schoolgirls have been forced to watch pornographic videos during mandatory sessions aimed at turning them away from an anti-government protest movementthat has swept the country for more than five months, IranWire has learned. Security forces visited girls’ schools in Tehran’s districts 4 and 5 and in the southwestern city of Bandar Mahshahr to abuse the students and violate …

VOA – Iran Wednesday ordered two German diplomats to leave the country in response to a similar move by Germany last week. The German expulsion of two Iranian diplomats came in protest of Iran’s sentencing German national Jamshid Sharmahd to death. Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani said Wednesday that Germany was interfering in Iran’s “internal and judicial affairs.”SEE ALSO:Germany …

CHRI – Five months into Iran’s “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement, in which girls and women were among hundreds killed at nationwide, anti-state protests, at least one girl has died amid hundreds of schoolchildren being deliberately poisoned in major cities including Tehran, Qom, Sari, Ardabil, Boroujerd, Torbat Jam, and Qoochan. “The deliberate poisoning of school girls in Iran is exposing the …

Iranwire – Twenty Iranian women incarcerated with eight environmental activists in Tehran’s Evin Prison have issued a joint statement calling the release of their fellow inmates, saying they have been subjected to numerous human rights violations and abuse. The statement released on February 27 said the environmentalists who worked at the Parsian Wildlife Institute to preserve the Asiatic cheetah and …

Iranwire – Women’s right to education is still not fully recognized in Iran, where Shia fundamentalists continue to try and prevent girls from attending school, possibly by poisoning them. Hundreds of Iranian schoolgirls have fallen sick and scores have been hospitalized in the religious city of Qom over the past three months, triggering growing suspicion they had been poisoned. On …

Iranwire – Religious freedom in Iran worsened in 2022, as it does every year in the country, and affecting the lives of religious minorities of every background. The following special IranWire report looks at the situation facing members of each minority religious community – including groups recognized by the Islamic Republic, and those not considered to be legitimate religious communities …