Human rights

CHRI – Stigmatization of Disability Perpetuated by Widespread Use of Insulting Language Despite years of effort by disability rights activists and NGOs to change societal biases about disabilities and protect the dignity of this community, governmental authorities in Iran continue to use references to disability as a means of insult. In the latest example, Attorney General Mohammad Ja’far Montazeri described …

PBS.org — The simple act of walking has become a display of defiance for a young Iranian woman who often moves in Tehran’s streets without a compulsory headscarf, or hijab. With every step, she risks harassment or even arrest by Iran’s morality police whose job is to enforce the strict dress code imposed after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. “I have …

What are the consequences of the Iranian government’s massive, systematic campaign to spread disinformation about religious minorities through social and traditional media? Watch an in-depth conversation with leading scholars. On July 16-18, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will host the second Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom, providing a much-needed forum to address the plight of frequently overlooked minorities in Iran, …

HRANA – In the morning of July 15, 2019 four prisoners of Urmia prison were executed on the charge of murder. They were transferred to solidarity confinement cells a day before. These prisoners, Himan Bonavand, Jafar (Iman) Mohammadi, Mohammad Aref (Jahangir) Najafian, and Mahmoud Khaledi were sentenced to death on the charge of murder earlier. Bonavand was in prison since …

Radiofarda – The Iranian Human Rights News Agency (HRANA) reported that Iranian security police arrested and jailed Moloud Hajizadeh, an Iranian journalist and women’s rights activist in Tehran on July 15. According to HRANA, Hajizadeh was summoned to the IRGC Intelligence Organization several times in recent weeks. Several Iranian journalists also tweeted the news of Hajizadeh’s arrest. According to one, Hajizadeh was …

Iran-HRM – Golrokh Iraee and Atena Daemi each were sentenced to three years and seven months in prison and a two-year ban on membership in political parties and associations. Civil rights activists Golrokh Iraee and Atena Daemi stood trial on June 18, 2019, at the 26th branch of the Revolutionary Court of Tehran, headed by judge Iman Afshari. The court …

Amnesty – Iran’s authorities are using incommunicado detention, prolonged solitary confinement and threats against family members in order to extract forced video “confessions” from women’s rights defenders detained for campaigning against the country’s discriminatory forced veiling (hijab) laws, said Amnesty International.  The organization has identified a pattern of at least six such cases since April 2019. In one of them, …

CHRI —At a time when international headlines are focused on Iran, little attention is given to the millions of children in the country who are subjected to a broad range of abuses and rights violations, including scant legal protection against physical or sexual violence, widespread child marriage and labor, and execution for crimes committed while juveniles. While there is a …

france24 – Fariba Adelkhah, an academic with dual French and Iranian nationality from Paris’s prestigious Sciences Po university, has been arrested in Iran and denied contact with French consular staff, France’s foreign ministry said Monday. “France calls on the Iranian authorities to shed full light on Mrs [Fariba] Adelkhah’s situation and repeats its demands, particularly with regard to an immediate authorisation for consular …

British-Iranian dual citizen Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, born December 26th 1978, is currently imprisoned in Iran, and has been imprisoned since April 3rd 2016. She stands accused of plotting against the Iranian government and spreading propaganda against Iran. Zaghari-Ratcliffe is a project manager with the Thomson Reuters Foundation, a Canadian global information and news network. The charitable foundation has been providing practical …