Human rights

Iran-HRM -The state security forces on Wednesday, May 22, 2019, raided a restaurant in a university in the northeastern city of Mashhad that was serving food during the Ramadan fast. A video circulated on social media showed college students fleeing from rooftops as state authorities raiding the restaurant to arrest anyone eating during fasting hours. Iranian morality police and Basijis …

VOA – An Iranian journalist who wrote about government corruption has been arrested for the second time in six months on the same day that Iran’s judiciary chief said he welcomes media critiques. In one of several contrasting state-media reports, news agency IRNA saidjournalist Masoud Kazemi was arrested Wednesday as he attended a Tehran court hearing. IRNA also quoted defense lawyer …

Radiozamaneh – International and Iranian organizations express concerns over the arrest of several labor rights activists in Iran including two journalists who were arrested on May day 2019 during a protest organized in Tehran. No news has been released about possible charges or the conditions that these political prisoners are being held at. Arrested in May Day demonstration, eight labor …

CHRI – Many Denied Access to Counsel, Families Warned to Stay Quiet After months of unlawful prosecution in connection with workers’ rights protests in southwestern Iran, five journalists and two labor activists are due to go on trial at Branch 15 of the revolutionary court in Tehran presided by Judge Abolqasem Salavati, a source with knowledge of their cases told …

CHRI – The former editor-in-chief of the Sedaye Parsi (Persian Voice) political magazine, Masoud Kazemi, was detained on May 22, 2019, after being unable to post bail, the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) has learned. During the hearing, presiding judge Mohammad Moghiseh also cursed at Kazemi and displayed “unimaginably strange” behavior, according to his lawyer. “At the hearing… at Branch 28 of …

Radiofarda – The Islamic Republic judiciary spokesman says that the order issued by the city of Isfahan’ prosecutor to ban cycling for women has been misunderstood. Speaking on Tuesday, Gholam Hossein Esmaeili reiterated that women’s cycling is not banned, provided the religious rules are respected. Earlier on May 14, the prosecutor in Iran’s third largest city had announced that women …

Iran-HRM – More than 900 writers, poets, essayists, and journalists in Iran have condemned the recent harsh verdicts against three prominent members of the Iranian Writers Association (IWA) as an “unjustified,” and “severe damage to the fundamental rights of all Iranians” that “kills freedom.” The statement published on Sunday, May 19 calls upon the Islamic Republic judiciary to immediately and …

CHRI – Malicious Spyware Has Attacked At Least 74 Victims Worldwide, Azeri and Gonabadi Dissidents Among Targets Iranian state agents continue to use malware to hack into the online accounts of religious minority groups inside and outside Iran, investigations by the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) has shown, with the latest attacks, designed to steal the private information …

Radiofarda – A court in Tehran on Sunday sentenced Yasin Ramin a well-connected businessman and an importer of medicine and medical equipment to seven years in jail, Fars news agency reported. Yassin Ramin is the son of former culture minister Mohammad Ali Ramin, an ultraconservative who banned several publications in Iran under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and held an international conference …

Iran-HRM – Tehran’s Revolutionary Court on Sunday sentenced four men affiliated with the People’s Mojahedin Organisation of Iran (PMOI/MEK) to prison and death. The branch 28 of Tehran’s Revolutionary Court headed by notorious judge, Mohammad Moghiseh, have sentenced 34-year-old Abdullah Ghasempour to death and eight years behind bars after being convicted of charges including “waging war on God,” “assembly and …