Human rights

(HRW) – The Iranian government should overturn a court ruling to dissolve one of the country’s largest nongovernmental groups that works to alleviate poverty, 15 human rights and civil society organizations, including Human Rights Watch, said today in a joint statement. A court ordered the shutdown at the government’s request in apparent coordination with Iran’s abusive intelligence and security apparatus. On March 5, …

Iran Human Rights – Following pensioners’ protests across 19 cities in Iran, security forces violently attacked and arrested protesters in Tehran on Sunday. An informed source told IHR that “Nine people including seven men and two women were arrested at the pensioners’ protest outside the Ministry of Labour building.” According to the source, all detainees except journalist Kamyar Fakour, have …

Iranwire – The United States is calling on the Iranian government to provide “credible answers” to what happened to a former FBI agent who was “abducted” while traveling in Iran in 2007. “The United States will never forget Bob Levinson,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a March 9 statement marking the 14th anniversary of his disappearance.Blinken also called on Iran …

Iranwire – Kylie Moore-Gilbert has said she had suicidal thoughts while being held in solitary confinement as a hostage in Iran. The British-Australian academic spent 804 days behind bars in the Islamic Republic after being jailed in September 2018 on fabricated spying charges. During her confinement last summer, she was moved from Evin Prison to the notoriously dangerous and unsanitary …

Al-Monitor – The Biden administration on Tuesday slapped travel restrictions on two Iranian officials accused of “gross violations of human rights” in their roles as interrogators for Tehran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Ali Hemmatian and Masoud Safdari and their immediate families are barred from entering the United States for their alleged involvement in “torture and/or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment” of …

indiewire.com – Jafar Panahi, the Iranian filmmaker behind 2015’s “Taxi,” recorded a message in support of imprisoned human rights activist Nasrin Sotoudeh. Jafar Panahi, the outspoken Iranian filmmaker behind 2015’s acclaimed “Taxi,” has recorded an International Women’s Day message in support of imprisoned lawyer and human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh. IndieWire is exclusively premiering Panahi’s message to Sotoudeh, which can be …

Shabtabnews – A group of of Iranian civil, political and human rights activists have written a letter to the President and members of the UN Human Rights Council urging them to immediately address the dire situation of political and ideological prisoners in the prisons of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The letter states that “it should be abundantly clear is …

Iranwire – “The working women who heard shed tears like a spring cloud. ‘Take us on Saturday,’ they said, ‘to talk to the judge.’ But I said the judge wouldn’t listen to us either. These women will become unemployed; their children will join the garbage collectors and child laborers, and others will drop out of school.” This was the gut-wrenching testimony ofSima Hashemi, …

Iranwire – Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been granted freedom of movement in Tehran after five years in detention, but is facing a new summons to court next Sunday in the latest political move by the Iranian regime. The British-Iranian charity worker, 42, was arrested at Tehran airport in March 2016 and jailed on spurious “espionage” charges. The case has drawn international condemnation, spurred by the …

Iranwire – Statistics from around the world show that more women than men have lost their jobs during the pandemic. Iran is no exception. A report by the Statistical Center of Iran shows the majority of jobs lost after the coronavirus outbreak a year ago belonged to women and especially to women laborers. But in this report IranWire talks to women workers who have …