Human rights

Radiofarda – A young Iranian labor and civil rights activist, Sepideh Qolyan (Gholian) went back to prison on Sunday after she refused to petition the Supreme Leader for clemency. Ms. Qolyan, 25, had been sentenced to five years in jail for her role in a labor protest at the Haft Tapeh Sugar Cane industrial complex in 2018, in the oil-rich …

Radiofarda – Victims of the notorious judge and prosecutor who was found dead in suspicious circumstances at a Bucharest hotel on Friday have begun speaking up. Azam Jangravi, one of the women activists against compulsory hijab was a victim who has told Radio Farda about her ordeal. Judge Gholamreza Mansouri put many Iranians, both men and women, behind bars after …

Radiofarda – The hypocrisy of the Iranian government has been painfully apparent in recent weeks as the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and other high-level members of the ruling elite sent messages of solidarity to people of color in the US. They’ve trumpeted their support for #BlackLivesMatter, hosted an “I Can’t Breathe” exhibit, and even proposed to name a street after George …

Iran Human Rights (IHR) – A man was hanged on June 16 at the central prison of Shiraz city for murder.  According to IHR sources, on the morning of Tuesday, June 16, death row prisoner Yasser Abdollahzadeh (31) was hanged at Shiraz central prison. He was arrested and sentenced to death for murdering a man over financial disputes three years …

Iran-HRM – A 34-year-old prisoner in Saqqez, in Iran’s Kurdistan province was tortured to death in the city’s prison, a human rights group said.According to the report by the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, prison agents forced his father to write off the cause of death as COVID-19 even though he had tested negative for the virus upon entering the …

VOA – Iran has withheld confirmation of its apparent recent execution of a Kurdish activist, in the latest example of its long-running practice of secretly executing ethnic minority dissidents. Kurdish activist Hedayat Abdollahpour’s brother Farhad told VOA Persian that their father received a call on June 10 from an official who asserted that Hedayat was executed on or around May …

Shabtabnews – USCIRF Urges the Administration to Immediately Enforce the Uyghur Human Rights Policy ActWashington, DC – The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) released the following statement urging the Administration to immediately enforce the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act, which was signed by President Donald Trump yesterday:“Along with Congress, the official communication and policy of this administration has been …

Radiofarda – Conspicuous tweets by two environmental journalists in recent days reveal possible pressures on social media influencers to refrain from public criticism of unfair arrests and trails. The journalists abruptly changing their previous positions came out supporting the verdict against Morad Tahbaz, a jailed Iranian-American ecologist. This has given rise to concerns over pressure on journalists to drop reporting …

VOA – Video footage earlier this month of Iranian police with a burning car carrying Afghan refugees has received wide condemnation inside Afghanistan and renewed debate about the plight of Afghans in Iran.  On June 3, a car carrying 13 Afghan migrants was set ablaze in Iran’s central Yazd province, killing three and injuring four. The video went viral on …

Iran Human Rights (IHR) – A man was hanged in public in the Iranian northwestern city of Firuraq on Thursday, June 11. This is the first recorded public execution in Iran in 2020. According to Azarbakhish website, on the morning of Thursday, June 11, 2020, a man was executed in public in the Iranian northwestern city of Firuraq, West Azerbaijan. He was …