Human rights

Iran-HRM – There have been several attacks on political prisoners in Iran’s jails in the past few days. The attacks were carried out by common prisoners incited and hired by prison authorities. On Tuesday, August 4, in Evin Prison, several financial convicts attacked and brutalized prisoner of conscience Behnam Mahjoubifar and Behnam Mousivand without any justification. They threatened to kill the latter. …

nytimes.com – Mehrdad Oskouei’s latest documentary, “Sunless Shadows,” is a startling, raw confrontation with Iran’s patriarchy. A poignant follow-up to his 2016 “Starless Dreams,” about teenage girls in a Tehran juvenile detention center, the new movie focuses on a group of adolescent girls and older women imprisoned for murdering male relatives. (Both documentaries are part of a virtual Oskouei retrospective at the …

consequenceofsound.net – Yet another Iranian band faces prison time for playing heavy metal. Death metal act Arsames were reportedly arrested last month and charged with “15 years in jail for being in a satanic metal band and being against the Islamic government,” according to official government documents (via Metal Injection). The members of Arsames are currently out on bail and awaiting …

Radiofarda – The “Headquarters for Promoting Virtue and Prohibiting Vice” in Iran’s Khorasan Razavi Province has enforced a ban on women riding bicycles in public places. The capital city of the province is Mashhad, Iran’s second largest city with a shrine considered by Shiites as the holiest religious venue in the country, where their eighth Imam, Ali bin Mousa al-Reza …

Radiofarda – Iranian conservatives have been justifying the Chinese government’s suppression of Uyghur Muslims in China and keeping silent in the face of systematic violence against Chines Muslims in Xinjiang Province. During the past days two tweets by Ali Motahari, a former member of the Iranian Parliament, about the situation of Uyghur Muslims in China has stirred a lot of …

Iran-HRM – Political prisoner Mostafa Salehi, detained for participating in late 2017, early 2018 protests was hanged at dawn today in a prison in Isfahan, central Iran. Mostafa Salehi was one of the protesters arrested during the nationwide protests in 2017-18 in the city of Kahrizsang, in Isfahan province. He was accused of killing a member of the Revolutionary Guards …

Iran-HRM – Based on information compiled by the Iran Human Rights Monitor, at least 21 porters (or back carriers) have been shot dead by revolutionary guards since March 20, 2020. This is an average of four porters per month and one porter every week getting killed by the IRGC. This figure does not include the cases where porters lost their …

Iran-HRM – A young woman was executed on August 2, 2020, in the Central Prison of Mashhad, the state-run media reported today. The woman identified only by her first name, Mehri, had already served six years on the death row. According to the state-run Khorasan daily the executed woman was accused of murdering her husband. With this execution, the total …

BBC – Maryam’s voice trembles as she tells what happened when her husband attacked her in public. “People’s reaction was like it was normal to see a man beating his wife. There’s no law, there are no safe houses, and even the police can’t do much. Some families also act like they’re so modern and they say, ‘Oh it’s a …

Radiofarda – In a statement on Tuesday, the Australian Department for Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) said Ambassador Lyndall Sachs had been allowed to visit jailed academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert at Tehran’s notorious Qarchak prison on Sunday and found that she is well. “Dr. Moore-Gilbert is well and has access to food, medical facilities and books,” the DFAT statement said. “We …