Human rights

HRW – Iran’s recently approved law to protect children and adolescents is a small positive step forward but falls short of the fundamental reforms needed to meaningfully protect children’s rights, Human Rights Watch said today. On June 7, 2020, the Guardian Council, the body responsible for ensuring the compatibility of legislation passed by Iran’s parliament with the constitution and Iranian authorities’ interpretation …

CHRI – Two years after the prominent human rights attorney Nasrin Sotoudeh was arrested and imprisoned in Tehran, the Iranian judiciary’s continuing prosecution of independent lawyers under manufactured charges is laying bare the state’s disregard for international standards of law and due process. “The courts are colluding with intelligence agencies to go after lawyers so that any last hopes for defending due …

CHRI – Two years after the prominent human rights attorney Nasrin Sotoudeh was arrested and imprisoned in Tehran, the Iranian judiciary’s ongoing persecution of independent lawyers under manufactured charges is laying bare the state’s disregard for international standards of law and due process. “The crackdown is part of a decades-long campaign of muzzling individuals who challenge repressive state laws and policies,” said …

Radiofarda – Referring to continued suppression of freedom of expression in the Islamic Republic, more than 300 Iranian writers, artists, academics, civil society activists, and journalists have warned that blocking all sorts of criticism and questioning the regime’s performance will lead to a “social collapse”. Given the inefficiency and corruption of the political system in Iran, a total social collapse …

Radiofarda – In its first statement since the Sunday arrest of its founder and two members, an independent charity in Iran on Tuesday said that they were arrested because the Revolutionary Guard has targeted the group with serious security accusations. According to the statement by Imam Ali’ Popular Students Relief Society, IRGC’s Sarallah Headquarters which deals with civil unrest and …

Radiofarda – Workers at one of Iran’s most restive industrial units, the Haft Tapeh sugarcane complex resumed their strike for the eighth consecutive day on Monday, June 22. They are demanding three-month overdue wages and protesting the non-renewal of their social welfare and medical insurance, as well as lack of job security. According to the Haft Tappeh Sugarcane Workers’ Union, …

Radiofarda – In a message recorded in prison and delivered to the UK Prime Minister by his wife, a British-Iranian businessman jailed in Iran since August 2017 has pleaded with Boris Johnson to get him and his fellow British citizens out of prison. “I am appealing to you to take action and get me and my fellow British citizens out …

Iran-HRM – New Covid-19 case has created greater risk of infection for political prisoners in Rajaei Shahr Prison, Karaj. Political prisoner Iraj Hatami who suffers symptoms similar to the Covid-19 disease, was sent to a civic hospital on Tuesday, June 16. Mr. Hatami is presently detained in the political prisoners’ ward in Rajaei Shahr Prison of Karaj. He had been …

Al-Monitor – On the night of June 15, Reyhaneh Ameri, a 22-year-old Iranian woman living with her parents in the Kerman province of south-central Iran, came home late, enraging her father. Ameri was a young, fashionable woman who, like many her age, liked to go out and socialize, which included socializing with men. Her conservative father had hated it. The following day, when Ameri was …

RFL/RE – A prominent Iranian NGO that fights poverty says its founder and two other members have been detained. Imam Ali’s Popular Students Relief Society said on June 21 that security forces had arrested the group’s founder, Sharmin Meymandinejad, at his home. It added that the charity’s media-relations director, Morteza Keymanesh, and senior inspector, Katayoun Afrazeh, were arrested, too. The …