Human rights

CHRI – An Iranian-born German citizen, U.S. resident and political dissident, Jamshid Sharmahd, who was abducted by Iranian agents in Dubai and forced to return to Iran in 2020, is at risk of being executed there while being denied the right to defend himself in court. Sharmahd, 66, is one of several Iranian dissidents that have been illegally abducted by Iranian agents and …

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO) – Sentenced to qisas for murder, Mirza Rouhifar was executed in Aligoudarz Prison on February 7. According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights, a man was executed in Aligoudarz Prison on the morning of February 7. His identity has been established as 37-year-old Mirza Rouhifar, who was sentenced to qisas (retribution-in-kind) for murder. Speaking to Iran Human …

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO) – Cousins Behzad and Yousef Tahmtan were executed on charges of murder in Ardabil Central Prison. On 16 May 2018, Babak Rezaei was wrongly executed for murders Behzad Tahmtan received the death penalty for. According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights, two men were executed in Ardabil Central Prison on the morning of February 6. …

Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO) – Khatoun Hamidi, a young woman who may have been a juvenile offender, sentenced to qisas (retribution-in-kind) for murder, was executed in Qazvin Central Prison. According to information obtained by Iran Human Rights, a woman was executed in Qazvin Central Prison (Choobindar) on the morning of February 5. Her identity has been established as Khatoun Hamidi who was …

RFL/RE – After Sajjad Heydari beheaded his 17-year-old wife, Mona Heydari, he paraded her severed head in the streets of the southwestern Iranian city of Ahvaz in an attempt to prove that he’s an honorable man. Footage of the macabre scene was posted online showing him smiling.Mona Heydari’s killing, which was reported on February 5, is the latest publicized case …

gatestoneinstitute.org – In 2021, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi signed two alarming amendments to Articles 499 and 500 of its Penal Code, making it easier for the authorities to crack down on religious minorities. The amendments impose prison sentences and fines on whoever insults “divine religions or Islamic schools of thought recognized under the Constitutions with the intent to cause violence …

Iranwire – Three Iranian Christian converts from Islam, with firsthand experience of persecution and imprisonment in Iran, joined the Article 18 director Mansour Borji and IranWire founder and Editor-in-Chief Maziar Bahari for a special discussion yesterday on the persecution of Iran’s Christian religious minority. Converting from Christianity was considered by the Islamic Republic to be “worse than murder,” one of the converts …

Iranwire – Following the brutal murder of 17-year-old Mona Heydari in the southern city of Ahvaz, rights activists have signed a petition to the UN Secretary-General and its affiliated institutions asking them to pressure the Islamic Republic to change its laws pertaining to women and the violence they face.  The petition, initiated by women’s rights activist Asieh Amini, highlights Mona Heydari’s murder by the hands of …

Iranwire – Political and civil rights activist Hashem Amini has been sentenced to 13 years in prison, IranWire has learned. A member of the rapidly-growing “No to the Islamic Republic” campaign, Amini was jailed by Branch 1 of the Revolutionary Court of Torbat-e Heydarieh in Razavi Khorasan Province on Sunday February 6. He was officially convicted of “propaganda against the regime,” …

Iranwire – A police officer told the Aban Tribunal he broke down in tears on a rooftop during the November 2019 protests, holding the Kalashnikov with which he had been instructed to shoot people. The final day of proceedings in London on Sunday saw a former senior IRGC official and two serving law enforcement officers testify to their own involvement in the bloody …