Fourth Human Rights Lawyer Slapped With National Security Charges in Iranتبدیل قرار کفالت به بازداشت و سنگین‌تر شدن اتهام دو وکیل دادگستری

AUGUST 24, 2018

Arash Keykhosravi, a lawyer representing the family of an Iranian Canadian man who recently died under suspicious circumstances in state custody, has been slapped with national security charges, making him the fourth defense attorney detained under this pretense in Iran in less than a year.

Former moderate lawmaker Ghasem Sholeh Sa’di is facing the same charges for attending a lawful political rally along with Keykhosravi in August 2018. Their detention orders have also been extended for a month without eligibility for bail.

“The prosecutor upped the charge from ‘disruption of public order’ to ‘assembly and collusion against national security’ even though it’s unrelated to what they did, which was attend a peaceful public gathering that didn’t harm national security the slightest bit,” attorney Payam Derafshan told the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) on August 21, 2018.

Iranian Journalist Sentenced to 10 Years in Prison for Criticizing Ultra-Conservative Cleric in a Tweetصدور حکم ۱۰ سال زندان برای محمدحسین میراسماعیلی به اتهام توهین به معصومان و مسوولان

AUGUST 24, 2018

Amir Mohammad Hossein Miresmaili, a former journalist and satirist for the Jahan Sana’at (Industry World) newspaper in Iran, has been sentenced to a decade in prison after allegedly disparaging a Shia imam in a tweet aimed at criticizing an ultra-conservative cleric in Iran.

Branch 1060 of the Government Workers Court in Tehran handed down the sentence on August 19, 2018. Miresmaili was also banned from media activities for two years as well as prohibited from traveling abroad for two years.

“There are many objections to the ruling against my client,” his lawyer Hossein Ahmadiniaz told the state-funded Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA).

Journalist Recounts “Inhumane” Living Conditions at Iran’s Great Tehran Penitentiaryمشاهده عینی نادر فتوره‌چی روزنامه‌نگار از حضور یک روزه در زندان فشافویه: زندانی ضد انسانی و ضد بشری، در ردیف جهنم

AUGUST 25, 2018

An Iranian journalist who was detained at Iran’s Great Tehran Penitentiary (GTP) has written about the jail’s “inhumane” conditions, stating in a Facebook post that day to day life there is “beyond the limits of human tolerance.”

“The sign above the entrance to the prison in Fashafouyeh says, ‘Great Tehran Penitentiary,’ but the fact is that psychological and physical pressures on the prisoners are so intense that you essentially don’t have the opportunity to ‘contemplate and repent,’” wrote Nader Fatourehchi on August 21, 2018.

With an official capacity of 15,000 inmates, the GTP, located in Tehran Province’s Fashafouyeh district, 20 miles southeast of Tehran, is the largest detention facility in the country. It was built in 2015 primarily for holding suspects and inmates convicted of drug-related offenses, but the judiciary has also used it to incarcerate dissidents and anti-state protesters.

Iran's forgotten persecuted Christian minorityفراموش شده ایران، اقلیت مسیحی را مورد آزار و اذیت قرار داده است

An Iranian woman walks past a mural depicting members of Basij paramilitary force, portraying Iranians' solidarity against their enemies, painted on the wall of a government building at the Felestin (Palestine) Sq. in downtown Tehran  (AP)

August 26, 2018

Iranian Christians are in dire straits in the Islamic Republic because of a new wave of regime repression that has largely not registered in the media due to the country’s economic free fall and popular uprising by a people fed up with the tyrannical nature of the regime.

The mullahs have launched a cut-throat campaign to silence their opponents, and on top of their list are Iran’s persecuted Christians – an ancient people of the land the regime stigmatizes as a gateway to the West.

Iran: Rights Defender Faces New ChargesVerdict Shows Criminalization of Rights Activismایران: مدافعان حقوق بشر در مواجهه با اتهامات جدیدحکم نشان‌دهنده‌ی جرم‌انگاری فعالیت حقوق بشری است

Human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh and Farhad Meysami, a human rights defender, protest the suspension of  Sotoudeh's law license in front of the Tehran bar association in Tehran, February 2015. 

 © Private 2015

August 17, 2018

(Beirut) – A prominent human rights lawyer arrested in June 2018 to serve a previously unrevealed prison sentence faces new charges, apparently solely due to her human rights work, Human Rights Watch said today. The recent release of a verdict against Nasrin Sotoudeh in an earlier court case also reveals the grave degree the Iranian judiciary is criminalizing human rights activism.

Sotoudeh is one of a number of human rights advocates targeted in a government crackdown since the beginning of 2018. On June 13, authorities arrested Sotoudeh to serve a five-year sentence issued against her in absentia on September 3, 2016. She was arrested shortly after she filed a case on behalf of a woman who was arrested for removing her headscarf. The authorities had neither previously informed Sotoudeh about nor publicly announced the 2016 conviction or sentence. Her lawyer told Human Rights Watch on August 16 that she was told after her arrest that the authorities have opened two new cases against Sotoudeh for her human rights work.

19 University Students in Iran Issued Long Prison Sentences as One More is Tried in Tehranوکیل پریسا رفیعی: «امیدوارم با رفع سوء‌تفاهمات موکلم از تمامی اتهامات تبرئه شود»

Iranian students clash with riot police during an anti-government protest around the University of Tehran, Iran, 30 December 2017. Media reported that illegal protest against the government is going on in most of the cities in Iran. Protests were held in at least nine cities, including Tehran, against the economic and foreign policy of President Hassan Rouhani’s government.

AUGUST 17, 2018

At least 17 students from universities in Tehran and two others from Tabriz have been issued harsh prison sentences ranging from one to 12 years in preliminary rulings by the Revolutionary Court system for attending protests earlier this year.

In the latest case, University of Tehran student activist Parisa Rafiei was tried at Branch 26 of the Revolutionary Court presided by Judge Mashallah Ahmadzadeh on national security charges on August 13, 2018.

“My client explained in court that she is simply a student activist working within the boundaries of the laws of the Islamic Republic,” Rafiei’s defense attorney, Saeed Khalili, said in a note published by Ensaf News on August 13. 

Kurdish Death Row Prisoner Transferred to Different Prison, Raising Fears He Could be Executedنگرانی خانواده و وکلای رامین حسین‌پناهی از انتقال شبانه او به زندان رجایی‌شهر کرج

AUGUST 16, 2018

A Kurdish man who has been sentenced to death in Iran despite serious concerns about how his case was handled has been transferred hundreds of miles to a prison near Tehran for unknown reasons, raising fears he could soon be executed.

“His family is worried because it is not clear if he has been transferred to receive treatment or if they want to carry out his execution,” Osman Mozayyan, one of Ramin Hossein Panahi’s lawyers, told the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) on August 14, 2018.

“But what is clear is that… the sentence against him was issued by a court in Sanandaj and legally that is where he should be incarcerated. I and two other lawyers are pursuing the matter,” he added. 

Judicial Official Refuses to Lift Iran’s Ban on Twitter Despite Growing Use by State Officialsبا وجود حضور رهبر، رییس‌جمهور، وزرا و مقامات کشوری در توییتر، دادستان کل کشور با رفع‌فیلتر آن مخالفت کرد

Iran’s hardline prosecutor general, Mohammad Jafar Montazeri.

AUGUST 17, 2018

After several state officials called on President Hassan Rouhani to make Twitter accessible in Iran, a hardline judicial official has said doing so would be a “crime.”

In May 2018, Telecommunications Minister Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi, Education Minister Mohammad Bathaei, Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi, Justice Minister Alireza Avaie, Science Minister Mansour Gholami, Culture and Islamic Guidance Minister Abbas Salehi, as well as two Members of Parliament (MPs), Ramezanali Sobhanifar and Mohammad Kazemi, signed a letter urging Rouhani to lift the state’s ban.

In response, Prosecutor General Mohammad Jafar Montazeri revealed that he had refused to participate in a meeting with the six cabinet ministers and two MPs to discuss the issue.

Desperate Families Call on Iranian State Heads to Release Detained Environmentalists

Detainees Held For Six Months Without Access to Counsel

AUGUST 3, 2018

The families of environmentalists who have been detained in Iran for the past six months—many in solitary confinement and without counsel—have sent a letter to the three heads of state advocating for the detainees’ release.

“It has been six months since the arrests of our loved ones who are known as some of the best and most respected environmentalists in Iran. These six months have been full of hardship, apprehension and anxiety for them and us. Six months without the liberty to make phone calls or have visitations. In these six months, tens of environmentalists have been detained and eight of them are still without access to lawyers in Ward 2-A of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Intelligence Organization in Evin Prison in small cells with a few other inmates.”

Iranian Parliamentary Group Reports Drop in Support For Strict Hijab

Conservative-Dominated Parliament Compiles Data Showing Failure of State’s Hijab Policy

AUGUST 3, 2018

Iran’s Parliamentary Research Center (PRC) has released a report showing decreasing support among the Iranian public for strict observation of the hijab, the head-to-toe Islamic dress code that women are required to observe in public.

The parliamentary group also referenced other reports released since Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, which reveal that the Islamic Republic’s decades-long endorsement of strict hijab has failed to get the public to willfully embrace it.

The report’s significance lies in the timing of its release—when women in Iran are being jailed in record numbers for peacefully protesting against the compulsory hijab by removing it in public, and because Iran’s Parliament is dominated by conservatives who have historically preached strict hijab observance.

The PRC also proposed repealing Iran’s hijab law as one of five approaches the state could adopt to counter waning support of the hijab, arguing that the state’s aim of getting people to embrace it could be achieved in more subtle ways.

Prominent Imprisoned Lawyer Furloughed After Young Daughter Dies

Homa Soltani, the daughter of prominent Iranian lawyer and political prisoner Abdolfattah Soltani, undated.

August 05, 2018

One of the founders of “Defenders of Human Rights Center” in Iran, Abdolfattah Soltani has been granted furlough to attend her young daughter’s funeral, Saturday, August 4.

Soltani’s 27-year old daughter, Homa, died of heart failure on Friday evening.

Earlier, Soltani had repeatedly been denied furlough, despite his fragile health. It is not yet clear how long the 64-year will be able to stay out of prison, but his attorney, Saeid Dehqan, told state-run Iran Students News Agency (ISNA) that the Islamic Republic authorities might extend his client’s furlough.

The news concerning the unexpected and sudden death of Homa Soltani has been widely circulated in social media.

According to well-informed sources, President Hassan Rouhani’s Ministry of Intelligence is directly responsible for keeping the prominent human rights activist behind bars.

Iran: Environmentalists Face Arbitrary DetentionActivists Face Prolonged Detention, Threat of Torture

A campaign poster showing environmental activists, Taher Ghadirian, Niloufar Bayani, Amirhossein Khaleghi, Houman Jokar, Sam Rajabi, Sepideh Kashani, Morad Tahbaz and Abdolreza Kouhpayeh, who have been in detention for six months. 

 © 2018 #anyhopefornature Campaign

August 3^rd, 2018

(Beirut) – Iranian authorities should immediately release eight environmental activists detained for six months unless they can immediately charge them with recognizable crimes and produce evidence to justify their continued detention, Human Rights Watch said today. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) intelligence organization has arrested at least 50 environmental activists across the country since January 2018.

On July 31, in an open letter addressed to senior officials, the families of the eight environmentalists said their loved ones are being held in Tehran’s Evin prison without access to a lawyer. They asked the authorities to visit these detainees in prison to hear the circumstances of their detention. The environmentalists are Houman Jokar, Sepideh Kashani, Niloufar Bayani, Amirhossein Khaleghi, Sam Rajabi, Taher Ghadirian, Abdolreza Kouhpayeh, and Morad Tahbaz.