Human rights

Shabtabnews – In a statment today “IOPHR condemned the Iranian regime’s human rights violations and for not giving a fair and just trial for 27 year old Navid Afkari and to use torture to force him to confess to crimes he has not committed.” In the statement IOPHR stated that “Navid Afkari, a 27 year old Iranian wrestler, is in …

Radiofarda – The lawyer of Navid Afkari, a 27-year-old man who received two death sentences for allegedly killing a security agent during the 2018 protests in Isfahan, says the footage that the court is using against the defendant was filmed “an hour before the incident.” Navid was originally arrested alongside his two brothers Vahid and Habib in August 2018, and …

Radiofarda – Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Hossein Zolfaqari, the Security Deputy of Iran’s Interior Ministry, said that “social tensions” in the first five months of the current Iranian calendar year have increased by 227 percent compared to the same period last year. According to Mehr News Agency, Zolfaqari said that authorities have tracked 1,702 online calls for protest since …

Radiofarda – In an open letter, sixty political prisoners warned on Sunday about a COVID-19 breakout in several wards of Fashafuyeh Prison of Tehran. In their letter, addressed to the Prosecutor of Tehran, the signatories said that the coronavirus has spread through several wards of one of the prison halls, and that the threat of illness is causing great anxiety …

VOA – A jailed Iranian lawyer and human rights defender has suffered a significant decline in her health on the 21st day of a hunger strike to protest Iran’s treatment of political prisoners, according to her husband.   Speaking to VOA Persian by phone from Tehran, Reza Khandan said he learned of his wife’s worsening health in a phone call that authorities …

Radiofarda – Many political and civil activists are condemning the prison sentences of signatories to an anti-Islamic Republic government letter widely known as the “77 Statement.” Following the brutal crackdown on protesters in November 2019, 77 political activists with various pro-reform backgrounds issued a statement condemning the shooting of protesters as a “crime” and calling for the prosecution of the …

Al-Monitor – Just a few years after the West was consumed with the #MeToo movement, a similar movement has finally emerged among Iranians, sending shockwaves across Persian language social media. Over the past week, many women and men have come forward to talk about their experiences of rape and sexual assault by dozens of high-profile figures in the country. Despite …

(PayvandNews ) – Nasrin Sotoudeh, a renowned Iranian writer, human rights lawyer, and activist, is reportedly in critical condition after being on hunger strike in Tehran’s Evin prison for over two weeks. PEN America today calls for her and other political prisoners’ immediate release and for an end to judicial and legal harassment of her and her family.  “We are heartbroken to see …

theguardian.com An Iranian man who beheaded his 14-year-old daughter has been sentenced to only nine years in jail, in a case that has sparked outrage at the way Iranian law appears to enshrine supposed male rights over women’s lives. Rana Dashti, the mother of 14-year-old Romina Ashrafi, expressed fury at the lenient sentence in an interview with the Iranian Labor …

Radiofarda – In response to a tweet by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei accusing the United States government of “murdering” young American protesters, State Department Spokesperson Morgan Ortagus said on Saturday that Iranians deserve “freedom and a future, not the Basij’s bullets.” “Khamenei’s thugs killed 1,500 Iranians on the streets of Iran last November,” Ortagus wrote, quoting Khamenei’s tweet. “At …