Human rights

HRW – Iran’s prison authorities should facilitate temporary release of all eligible prisoners and the unconditional release of people detained for peaceful dissent, due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak, Human Rights watch said today. The virus has spread across Iran, and poses a heightened risk in closed institutions. To reduce the risk of further transmission and mortality, authorities should also support “social distancing” …

CHRI – One week after judicial officials announced they had released tens of thousands of prisoners to prevent more coronavirus outbreaks, peaceful political prisoners in Mashhad’s Vakilabad Prison are in limbo and remain untested for COVID-19 even as they exhibit symptoms, according to their relatives. One political prisoner’s relative told the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) that her father was …

RFL/RE – The United States has called on Iran to “immediately release on humanitarian grounds” all U.S. citizens who are “wrongfully” detained in the country. “The United States will hold the Iranian regime directly responsible for any American deaths. Our response will be decisive,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement on March 10. His remarks came amid news that …

CHRI -– Individuals detained in Iranian detention facilities are suffering from serious human rights violations and the situation of those arrested during the November 2019 protests is a subject of particular concern, said a UN expert in his latest report presented to the Human Rights Council. Javaid Rehman, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of …

indiewire.com – Cannes and the European Film Academy are among organizations protesting the Iranian filmmaker’s prison sentence. Mohammad Rasoulof Francois Mori/AP/Shutterstock Figureheads from the European film industry have gathered to protest the imminent incarceration of Iranian film director Mohammad Rasoulof, whose film “There Is No Evil” won the Golden Bear at this year’s Berlinale, which he was unable to attend because …

Shabtabtab – Today the International Organisation to Preserve Human Rights (IOPHR) in a letter sent to Dr Javaid Rehman, (The UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran) requested his assistance in freeing all political prisoners in Iran due to the rapid spread of coronavirus within Iranian prisons. In the letter IOPHR states …

Radiofarda – In a letter to Iran’s Chief Justice the mother of Narges Mohmmadi, a jailed human rights activist, has warned about ill-treatment as well as physical and sexual threats against her daughter by another inmate. According to the news agency of Human Rights Activists in Iran (HRANA) in her letter Ozra Bazargan has said that the inmate who has …

Iran-HRM – Another physician died in Rasht due to Corona infection. The number of physicians and nurses who have died in Iran due to Covid-19 so far reaches 12. Saturday night, March 7, the official IRNA news agency reported the death of Mohammad Mohammadi, an experienced physician in Rasht, due to Corona infection. A general physician, Mohammad Ali Rabii, who …

RFL/RE – Iranian authorities have released about 70,000 prisoners because of the new coronavirus outbreak in the country, judiciary chief Ebrahim Raisi said, as Iran reported 43 new deaths from the disease in the past 24 hours.“The release of the prisoners, to the point where it doesn’t create insecurity in society…will continue,” Raisi said on March 9, according to Mizan, …

Iran-HRM -While numerous reports and videos from Iran indicate severe shortage of medical supplies, the Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) is stockpiling masks and disinfectants and is selling them at 20 times their price to the public. On March 2, the Iranian regime’s Health Minister Saeed Namaki said in a letter to the Minister of Industry, “The problem of health masks is …