Forced Psychiatric Hospitalization Cannot Become New Means of Silencing Dissent in Iranبستری شدن روانپزشکی اجباری نمیتواند به عنوان ابزار جدید خلع سلاح در ایران تبدیل شود
NOVEMBER
6, 2018
Teachers’ Rights Activist, Held Against His
Will at Psychiatric Hospital in Iran and Forcibly Given Medications, Must Be
Released Immediately
Wife and Son of Hashem Khastar Arrested
with Other Protestors, Released Same Day
November 6, 2018—The
Iranian government should immediately release teachers’ rights activist Hashem Khastar from the psychiatric facility where
he has been forcibly and unlawfully held, the Center for Human Rights in Iran
(CHRI) said in a statement today.
In addition, CHRI condemns
the arrest on November 5, of Khastar’s wife, Sedigheh Maleki, and their two
sons, Jahed Khastar and Ahmad Khastar, in addition to the other protesters who
were with them, in front of the hospital where Khastar is being unlawfully
held. While they were released at the end of the day, these arrests were a
transparent means of intimidation to shut down protest over Khastar’s forced
admittance into the psychiatric hospital.
“The Iranian authorities
are using imprisonment in a psychiatric facility in order to silence a civil
rights activist, and arresting family members or anyone else that dares to
protest this abuse of power to enforce this silence,” said Hadi Ghaemi,
executive director of CHRI. “This is right out of the playbook of the worst
abuses by authoritarian powers.”
By arresting the prominent
activist, forcibly admitting him to a psychiatric facility and administering
medication against his will, Iranian officials have committed a blatant act of
arbitrary detention and torture and violated the right to health, which
requires free and informed consent to any medical care, CHRI said in its
statement.
Forced Hospitalization and “Treatment” Is
Arbitrary Detention and Torture
What has transpired
against Khastar is legally defined as “arbitrary detention” and a violation
of Article 9 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights (ICCPR), to which Iran is a signatory, which states “No
one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest or detention.”
As remarked
by the UN Human Rights Committee, the body interpreting the
covenant, “any form of physical restriction not allowing the person to leave
the facility is considered detention and the fact that the facility is a
medical center does not change this.”
The authorities have also
violated Article 7 of the ICCPR, which states, “No one shall be
subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
In particular, no one shall be subjected without his free consent to medical or
scientific experimentation.”
Even if an individual has
mental health issues, in accordance with Article 14 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with
Disabilities (CRPD), a disability in and of itself cannot
justify the deprivation of liberty. Article 15 of the CRPD also prohibits any medical
or scientific tests on people without their consent, which they consider to be
acts of torture and degrading, inhuman treatment.
In addition, according to
the CRPD’s Article 25 and Article 12 of the International Covenant on Economic Social and
Cultural Rights, (ICESCR), as interpreted by the relevant UN
Committee, providing medical care must be on the basis of free and informed
consent and prescribing any medication or procedure without such informed
consent is a blatant and serious violation of human rights.
According to Iran’s domestic rules on medical procedure, the only
exceptions to the principle of consent concern children and individuals whose
decisions are made by legal guardians. Even in emergency situations, the
consent of the individual or his family is required as soon as possible.
Iran’s Guidelines for Special Situations in Rehabilitation and Treatment
Centers for Psychiatric Patients stipulate that if a person
with acute mental health conditions has not been declared “incapacitated” by
medical or judicial authorities, her/his personal consent is necessary to carry
out any medical treatment.
“We are deeply concerned
that the forcible admission of individuals into psychiatric facilities will
become the norm in dealing with civil activists and critics of the state,
giving the Iranian authorities yet another means to ignore judicial procedure
and unlawfully arrest and detain critics of the state,” Ghaemi said.
“We urge international
human rights mechanisms, including the UN Human Rights Council, the UN Working
Group on Arbitrary Detention and the UN special rapporteur for human rights in
Iran to forcefully condemn this action and demand the immediate release of
Khastar.”
Khastar’s Arrest for Peaceful Activism and
Forced Hospitalization
According to Sedigheh
Maleki, who spoke about her husband’s forced admittance into the psychiatric
hospital before she herself was arrested, the retired teachers’ rights advocate
was arrested in Mashhad, in the northeast province of Khorasan Razavi on
October 23 by plain-clothed individuals who did not reveal their identity or
present a warrant. They forcibly put Khastar in an ambulance and admitted him
to the Ibn-e Sina and Dr. Hejazi Psychiatry Hospital against
his will.
Despite his resistance and
objections, Khastar was tied to a bed, given a number of injections, had blood
withdrawn and was administered unknown tests.
According to his family,
his close friend and colleague, Javad La’l-Mohammadi, and the Iranian Teachers’ Trade
Association (ITTA), who issued a statement, Khastar has never had any psychiatric issues
and there have never been any questions about his full mental health.
Since his arrest, he has
been visited once by two of his relatives for 10 minutes in the presence of a
security agent.
None of the judicial,
security or military officials have responded to inquiries by Khastar’s family
or taken responsibility for his forced arrest. Meanwhile, hospital staff have
said they cannot give information without a written permission from the
prosecutor of Mashhad, Gholamali Sadeghi.
Khastar was arrested ten
days after teachers in several cities in Iran participated in a peaceful sit-in to demand educational reforms and
the release of imprisoned teachers’ rights activists.
Arrest of Family Members
The arrest of Khastar’s
family members, meanwhile, is a continuation of the authorities’ use of
pressure, harassment and detainment of family members as a means to intimidate
and silence criticism of unlawful and politically motivated arrests, CHRI
added.
An eyewitness at the
gathering at the hospital where Khastar’s family members were arrested, who
requested anonymity for security reasons, told CHRI that the police blocked
streets leading to the hospital prior to the arrests of the family members and
other protesters.
“On Monday [November 5,
2018] I went toward the hospital along with a few friends and colleagues but
there were a lot of security forces stationed there—Intelligence Ministry
agents in plain clothes and policemen. They were stationed in a square near the
hospital, blocking the street leading to it. Mr. Khastar’s wife and their sons
were quickly taken into custody along with several protesters,” the source
said.
Those arrested include
Khastar’s academic colleagues Hadi Lotfinia and Mohammad Yazdi as well as eight
others whose names have not been released.
In interviews about her
husband’s illegal hospitalization prior to her arrest, Sedigheh Maleki had said
she had been warned that if she continued to talk to the media she would face
prosecution.
The detainees were first
transferred to a local police station and later taken away by security forces
to an unknown location, according to the source.
“The rally and arguments
with the police went on until five-thirty in the afternoon. They took the
detainees to the Shafa Police Station and when we went to ask about their
situation, the guard at the gate would not let us inside. We then talked to the
station officer and he told us that the security agents came and took the
detainees but didn’t say where. They told us to come back tomorrow for more
information.”
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